Sing Songs in My Head
by Lady DiMera
Summary: After Erik dies, his spirit wanders the earth in frustration and boredom...until he is summoned by Veronica...
1. My Name is Erik

My name is Erik…and I am a ghost…

How I came into such a predicament, I cannot say. One moment, I was suffering horribly in the throes of death. The next, I have become this strange otherworldly specter…

I admit that I was never one to believe in God or the Hereafter. If there was truly such a benefactor, he wasof the mostsadistic sort. For how else can one explain all of the suffering of his creatures? And I had known such suffering in my mortal life. Oh, I had known it all too well…

But perhaps there really is such a Creator. I know of no other way to explain how my spirit seems to fade in and out of the earth's stratosphere so frequently. I suppose I am payinga sort of ironic punishmentfor pretending I was a ghost so often when I was truly alive.

I have always been summoned by people with a high amount of creativity. Singers, actors, composers, writers…

First, there was that horrid author, Gaston Leroux. If I had known he would write such a sordid account of my life story, so cruelly named "The Phantom of the Opera" published in the year of Nineteen Hundred Eleven, I would have haunted him until he had lost every semblance of sanity. What a hack! He had taken my life and twisted it into another one of his dreadful mystery stories. And has anyone ever heard of anything else he ever wrote? I think not. His story was only read because of the strength of my character, of my life.

I truly believe this man, this Gaston Leroux, was the cause of my never being able to truly rest in peace again as I had been called back by various people over and over ever since.

In the year of Nineteen Hundred and Twenty Five, I was summoned by a talented character actor named Lon Chaney. His life had not been an easy one; thus, he had my sympathy. The son of deaf mutes, he became known as the "Man of a Thousand Faces", going to incredible lengths with stage makeup and such to make incredibly realistic characters. His commitment to his playacting moved me. Considering that his source material was the wretched novel of Leroux, I thought that his portrayal of my life was admirably performed for a new invention at that time: the motion picture camera. I found the process of making such a work of art fascinating and frightening.

Ever since the making of that first film, I have never been idle for long. Several more actors wanted to work with me in motion pictures. Some of the films were a joy. Some were quite dull. There were some stories written for a box called a radio. There were adaptations made for another box called a television set.

In the Nineteen Hundred and Eighties, I was called by many different people to aid in a collaboration of an ambitious masterpiece. It was a musical entertainment of sorts to be performed in London. Later on, this piece was performed on a street called Broadway in New York State in the New World. No one expected this musical play to become quite as popular as it did. I was then summoned by various singer-actors all over the world, each and every one of them wanting to do the part of my life justice. I was called for concerts and musical recordings for many years after the musical opened.

This was a labor of love for me, I must confess. I feel that this work, composed by a man named Andrew Lloyd Webber, has been the most accurate portrayal of my story. I so loved being with these fine actors, singing such beautiful words of high romance. Although I must confess to you, if I had been nearly as seductive and suave as some of those actors, if I had had those lovely songs with such sweet words at my fingertips, Christine Daae would have had her skirts up for me in no time.

After a film was finally made of this musical, I had deliberately ignored all further cries for my presence. I was truly exhausted. After all, there are only so many times anyone can continually plead for the woman he loves and mean it. Each parting with Christine on stage would feel a little more forced and false for me. I was more in love with the romance than the woman. To be honest, when I think of Christine now, I remember my love and passion for her, but her face has faded from my mind's eye. It was so long ago, you see. Now, in my memory, she has become a strange combination of the actresses Sarah Brightman and Emmy Rossum. But I know damned well the real Christine was never as beautiful as these women, although she was quite fetching.

I was worn out. I no longer wanted to remember Christine and her lover, the Vicomte de Chagny. Perhaps after all of this time, the pain of her betrayal has finally started to fade. Whether this was the case or not, it mattered little. I have sung my songs of love for her countless times. But she is gone, buried in the earth forever. She will never come back, no matter how much I may wish it.

I had hoped that God (or whoever was responsible for my fate) would allow me to sleep now. Hadn't I at last paid for my sins? So many people have benefited by the telling of my life story. Careers and fortunes were made repeatedly at my expense. And of course, there were all of the audience members. The ones who fell in love with my story, the ones who clung to it with an obsession that rivaled my own capacity for such emotion…

I no longer cared to come back for anyone.

Until one night, I was called by a young woman named Veronica…


	2. Write For Me

_Write for me!_

The male voice called out to Ronnie very clearly, startling her from her alcohol-induced haze.

Ever since she had returned to her parents' house after the hospital visit, she had been determined to get as as intoxicated as possible. But all of the booze in the world could not make her forget the horrors she had faced last night.

Elizabeth Hannah, her grandmother, was on a death watch at Baylor Hospital in Dallas. At the age of eighty eight, she was finally succumbing to her battle with Alzheimer's...a war that had lasted over ten years. As time went by, she had been unable to care for herself and had been only a shell of the woman that Ronnie remembered as her grandmother. Neither her grandfather nor her mother wanted to put Elizabeth in a nursing home. Every holiday, her grandmother would become a little bit more lost to the world of her past. She would talk to her dead sister and her dead cats. She would forget Ronnie's name and her mother's name. As the disease progressed, she ultimately lost the ability to talk, mumbling incoherently. She could not walk or go to the bathroom by herself. In short, she had become as helpless as a baby.

Two nights ago, Elizabeth had suffered a stroke which resulted in her falling into a coma. There was nothing anyone in the hospital could do for her. She was too elderly to make a recovery. As long as she was alive, she was doomed to remain in a comatose state. There were only two options: to put her on life support or to allow her to pass on. Everyone in the family agreed for the latter option. It was her time.

All IV tubes and oxygen tanks were removed.

Now there was nothing to do but wait for the inevitable.

Last night, Ronnie volunteered to stay with her grandmother at the hospital, allowing the rest of the family to get a much needed break from their vigil. All agreed that Elizabeth should not die alone without a family member present. Those seven or eight hours were pure hell for Ronnie.

If only she could get her grandmother's skeletal face out of her memory...

If only she could stop hearing those gasps for breath...

If only she could forget how the nurses would inject a steady flow of morphine into her grandmother's worn veins in order to keep her body from spasmodically twitching as she neared death...

Ronnie could not look at her grandmother for over a few minutes at a time. She could not bear seeing the beautiful woman she remembered come to such a state. And she hated herself for thinking that her grandmother was starting to look progressively ghoulish as she slowly starved to death...like something out of a Stephen King novel. The more she tried to push that thought out of her mind, the more stubbornly it clung in her conscience.

Trying to abolish such morbid thoughts, Ronnie tried to find other things to do to occupy her time. She worked crossword puzzles, but none of the answers seemed to come. She attempted to read her novel, but that was even more of a hopeless cause. She closed her eyes and tried to sleep, but the back-breaking chair in the hospital room did not allow for that. She walked about the stark white corridors and hallways, but there wasn't much of anywhere to go in a hospital at three o'clock in the morning.

The litany repeated over and over in her head: Please, Grandma, please die. End your suffering and regain your dignity. Please die...please...

The nurse had said that it was okay to talk to her...that "the hearing is the last to go". Ronnie went over to her grandmother and took her hand. Elizabeth's fingers closed over her own, but she suspected that that was an involuntary response...much like what a newborn baby would do.

"Grandma?" she asked.

But she could not say anything else for she became choked with tears. Then she cursed herself for being a weak coward. Did her grandmother know she was there? Was she upset with her for not talking to her while she was dying? For hardly being able to look at her?

Now at last in the privacy of her parents' home, she could weep and wail to her heart's content. She could curse and scream at God without any sympathetic looks from hospital employees or sanctimonious speeches from the hospital parson. She did not care to hear some stranger lecture her with "ours is not to reason why". All she knew was that her grandmother had never hurt a living soul. And yet there she was, dying with agonizing slowness. Life had never been easy for Elizabeth.

Ronnie wanted to cry, but the irony never seemed to end. She was all cried out.

So she took another swig of the bottle of Southern Comfort that she had stolen from her father's private bar, hoping to drown away her misery.

_Write, Veronica. It will help you, I promise..._

And now she was hearing voices in her head! She hadn't had that much to drink!

Obviously, she was tired and overwrought from her all night stay at the hospital. And now, rather than getting her few hours of precious sleep, she was hallucinating or having a nervous breakdown or something.

The phone rang, startling her to awareness.

"Hello, Ronnie..."

It was her father. There was only one reason that he could be calling right now.

"Is she dead?"

"She passed away a half hour ago."

"Okay." Not a very intelligent response, but she didn't know what else to say.

"We still have to clear up some details here at the hospital. Are you all right by yourself there at the house?"

"Sure," she said, trying not to betray the crack in her voice as she felt her inner hysteria beginning to mount.

"It was for the best, Ronnie."

"I know."

"Okay. See you soon."

"Yeah."

As soon as she hung up the phone, she ran into the guest bedroom and collapsed upon the bed in tears. Somehow, the alcohol did not numb the pain but just worked as a depressant. Once the sobs started, they would not stop.

_Do not torture yourself with blame, Veronica. Elizabeth wants you to remember the good times._

"Shut up!" Ronnie screamed, covering her ears. "Shut up!"

After a few moments, once she had somewhat calmed, the voice sang a lullaby to her.

_Come, little leaf, said the wind one day.  
Come over the meadow with me and play.  
Put on your dresses of red and gold.  
Summer is gone and the wind blows cold._

That was a song her grandmother used to sing to her when she was a baby! She hadn't thought of that song for ages. Ronnie did not have enough presence of mind to question the beautiful eerie voice. She just let the softly sung words comfort her, slowly lulling her to sleep.

* * *

Ronnie slept a dreamless sleep for about eight or nine hours, waking up on her own. 

There was a message from her father on the answering machine. Damn, she hadn't even heard the phone ring!

"Hi, Ronnie. Guess you're still asleep. We're stopping at Denny's to get a bite. We'll bring you home something. Okay?"

That meant that they would probably be back here soon.

She showered and slipped on a pair of sweats, feeling much better than she had. Amazing how a little sleep could do wonders! And her drinking binge didn't even leave so much as a headache. She just felt relaxed and comfortably numb.

Reaching for her parents' laptop, she signed onto the Internet, preparing to surf herself into oblivion or until her parents came home...whichever happened first.

But before surfing, she needed to check her e-mail. It was her last semester at the university. Although this was a family emergency, she would still pay a hefty price for missing so many classes this late in the term. The great halls of Academia had no sympathy for minor problems such as death and pain. Luckily, she had the foresight to call one classmate per class to update her with class notes and such.

Immediately, an Instant Message popped up on the screen before she even had a chance to look at her e-mail.

_Erik: Write for me._

What the hell? That was the same thing her imaginary voice had said to her.

_Ron2812: Who are you?_

_Erik: Your muse. Or your ghost. Whichever you prefer._

What a nutcase! The crazy guys were always attracted to her, even in cyberspace!

She typed an angry response.

_Ron2812: I can hear the cuckoo singing in the cuckoo-berry tree!_

_Erik: I do not understand what you mean._

"I mean you are a psychotic escaped from some mental institution, you weirdo!"

_Erik: True. I suppose I am rather an insane escape artist, but fortunately I have never been incarcerated._

How did he know what she had said out loud?

Ronnie stood up and looked about the room. She walked all through the large house. Mentally, she checked off every room. No one in the bathroom, the living room, the computer room, the kitchen, her parent's room, her grandparents' room, her grandparents' bathroom, the basement, the attic...

Nothing.

It was quiet, very quiet, almost spookily so.

She looked into the backyard.

"No one but us, Pookie," she said to her grandfather's dog. But even Pookie was acting sort of strange, sniffing about curiously. The little black curly-haired mutt, usually always running and jumping about all over the grass, was standing as still as a statue with a paw up in the air.

Why did she suddenly feel the hairs at the back of her neck rise?

Nervously, Ronnie returned to her computer.

_Ron2812: What am I supposed to write?_

_Erik: Remember the play?_


	3. Man Behind the Mask

How well I recall the first time I saw Veronica...

She was attending a play in a place called Deep Ellum. Sort of an artistic area in a city called Dallas. This was in the state of Texas in the New World. I like such areas as Deep Ellum. The naughtiness of such a place, complete with prostitutes and drug addicts and artists, must have been like what the Moulin Rouge had been like in all of its glory when Toulouse-Lautrec would paint his dancing chorus girls. Alas, I never had the opportunity to visit the Moulin Rouge during its artistic peak. But I had often dreamed of doing so.

"Man Behind the Mask" was the newest play based upon my life. It was a one-man show, telling the 'real' story of my life from my birth to my death. I have to admit the work was a noble effort, despite all of its lies.

As if that arrogant actor, Tony Bradshaw, knew anything about the 'real' story of my life!

Bradshaw not only played the part of "Erik" but he also had written, directed and produced this play. And that pesky stubborn man was the only reason why I came out of my sweet respite of oblivion.

Perhaps it was sheer prejudice on my part, but I did not care to have anything to do with Tony Bradshaw as an artist or anything else. He was too handsome with his swarthy Mediterranean looks and black eyes, like a Gypsy prince in times of old. Even wearing my famous half-mask along with dark hat and cape, he still looked too bloody dashing for my taste! Despite his constant grumblings to the contrary, he had led a charmed life. So what if he had occasional troubles making his way in the world? No one had forced him to become a playwright and strolling player! The truth was that everything had always been handed to him on a silver platter because of his pretty face and charming manner. Perhaps he reminded me just a bit too much of the Vicomte de Chagny. Who can say? But I had no intention on ever helping him.

Yet Bradshaw was not a man to be underestimated. He had determination as strong as steel. I will credit him with that. He would call and call for me nonstop with the persistence of a mule, pleading for my help and inspiration to make his show a success. Going mad with his constant summoning for me, I arrived one night in his dressing room.

When I aid those who call for me, usually it is in the form of mental telepathy. The methods I choose to employ depends very much on the individual. Most of the time, they are never even aware of my presence.

For example, when the talented Michael Crawford, the first Andrew Lloyd Webber 'Phantom', portrayed me on stage, I infused him not only with my emotions, but also with my physical essence and power. His voice boomed across stages all over the world with the violence and passion of my life. Yet he also knew of my tenderness, moving his beautiful hands in complete synchronization with my soul as he sang "Music of the Night", his voice soaring to unbelievable heights. I was quite proud of my accomplishment with him, particularly when he won that Tony Award. I believe that is some sort of celebratory statue that the people on the street of Broadway give out every year in the state of New York. At last, my talent was recognized in one form or another.

Andrew Lloyd Webber had also won one of these Tony Awards. His experience with me was obviously of a more auditory nature. With him, I would recreate my own orchestral compositions. I was always fond of bombastic sweeping music, especially as I would pound away on that pipe organ down in the catacombs of the Garnier Opera House. Being a man of uncommon genius, he only needed a little help from me before he was completely swept away in his own individual wave of creativity.

With the film actor, Gerard Butler, I planted images of my suffering in his mind so that his eyes shone with all of the love and pain and anger in my heart, perfect for all of those large images of him playing me on the motion picture screen. With that last precious kiss with Christine, I gave him the gift of knowing just how it had felt for me. To at last know those sweet lips, to have her so close...and yet I was finally faced with the knowledge that our love was impossible. I believe Mr. Butler showed all of those emotions perfectly.

No artist was ever the same. One cannot create great art by using an instruction manual. One must experiment and feel out what is right and what is false...what is moving and what is not.

With Tony Bradshaw, I listened to his monologue as he performed it. Some of the events of my life werewere astonishingly accurate while others were complete falsehoods. Whenever I heard details that were true, I would visualize the events and transfer them to his mind. When he spoke of the catacombs underneath the Opera House, I gave him a clear sense of just how cold it was, how dark and wet and miserable it could be. I let him see my lair with all of the candelabra and artwork. This was the sort of method I used with him.

And it was a brilliant tactic, if I may say so myself. For the audience fell in love with him. Suddenly, his photograph was on the cover of many local Texas periodicals. He had been interviewed for the television box. I was surprised that such a little of my expertise had gone such a long way with Bradshaw. But the man was nothing if not a self-serving opportunist! And again, life for him was nothing but a pleasant tea party!

Having missed the glory of the theater world, I decided to endure Bradshaw's presence a bit longer. At least, for a few more performances...

On one of these nights, I first heard the call of Veronica.

It was a sweet loud trilling song of a summons. I was shocked for I had never before been called by a woman.

At first, I was held captive by her big dark eyes. She was aglow, transfixed with all of the action unfolding before her on the stage. Her lips were slightly parted in wonder as she took in every one of Bradshaw's words with unremitting interest.

I barely paid any more attention to Tony Bradshaw. In truth, he did not need my help any longer.

And I could only gaze upon Veronica Lindell with fascination...

She was just the sort of woman that I would have passionately lusted after in my human days. With her dark black flowing curls and her ivory skin, she was a delicate beauty. Her curves were lush and full, a paradise for any man. She was wearing a black dress with too low of a neckline and too high of a hem. Her legs were long and lovely, bare of any stockings. A pair of strappy black high heeled sandals adorned her feet. I fantasized of what it must be like to tear of those flimsy shoes and kiss each one of her exposed toes.

I swore that I would never get used to seeing the fashions women wore in Two Thousand and Five. Every woman was in a virtual state of undress. Queen Victoria would have been prostrate at the sight of such flagrant boldness! Naked arms and legs and bellies and hips constantly on display everywhere. How could mortal men stand such constant temptation all of the time? If I were mortal, I should have gone mad!

But sadly I confess that while I have always been an avid admirer of the female form, I could do no more than appreciate women from a strictly aesthetic point of view in my ghostly state. When one is a haunting spirit, one is relieved of the burden of sexual desire. I admit that this had been no great hardship on me. During my life on earth, physical yearning was nothing but a source of angst and unfulfillment for me. Indeed, such base instincts often served as the catalyst for my crimes and sins. Who knows what sort of life I might have led if I had not such a desire for flesh and feeling?

I should have been relieved that the lovely Miss Lindell could never have such a hold on me. She could not possibly drive me to murderous rage and jealousy as Christine had. It would be impossible now. But curiously, I was rather sad about my supernatural impotency. I could not say why I should ever want a woman again.

Even so, I could not resist her call to me. Immediately, I abandoned Tony Bradshaw and looked deep into her heart and soul.

She was a writer, an amateur one to be sure, but she had talent. Her stories had originality and wit and emotion. She was also an actress, but that part of her creativity had been stifled with constant rejection for quite a few years now.

As Bradshaw described my life, I could see vivid pictures in her mind. And then those images became laced with her own words and descriptions, stimulating her imagination until her own stories began to form. I found the way her mind worked fascinating.

Then I was shocked by a startling image in her mind. One where she was kissing me. And we were both as naked as the day we were born!

Good Lord!

Or was she with Tony Bradshaw?

It was hard to tell which man she was with precisely, but I was already seething with jealousy at that charlatan's interference.

I left her psyche at once, quite distraught at what I had seen.

Too many women fancied themselves in love with me when they did not even know me! They wanted Crawford or Butler or Bradshaw or any one of those actors who pretended to be me with such seductive skill. At that moment, I hated every single one of those cursed actors! How many times did they get to lie with a woman who was fantasizing about me? And where would any of those strutting peacocks be without me!

If any of those lovestruck women had seen my real face, they would have fainted in horror just like Christine had! For my face was the real article, not an assemblage of stage makeup that could be taken off at the end of the night. It was true mottled flesh and blood and bone, plastered to my skull in an unholy mess!

Even in my rage, I wished that I could be that nude man kissing Veronica...even when all reason and physicality was against it. Although I was no longer prey to of any sort of physical discomfort or frustration, the thought of a girl like her fantasizing about me made me horribly low. Where had she been when I needed her? Back in Eighteen Hundred and Eighty One when I was still alive? A fine time now for a woman to want me! When I was of no use at all in that capacity!

Was this to be my Hell then? To constantly wander the earth as a ghost yearning for what I could never have?

Disgusted with the entire human race, I went back to my peaceful oasis of non-existence. Maybe this time I could stay there forever.

But Veronica still called for me...like one of those sirens who caused sailors to shipwreck at sea...

While I remained steadfast in ignoring her, the calls became increasingly more pitiful and frantic as time passed. Something had happened to her. I could sense her pain. In her despair, I knew that she needed me...and not for fame or fortune...but in order to keep her soul intact somehow.

I resigned myself to my fate as I once again returned to Texas and Veronica.

Soon, I observed the cause of her turmoil. She was suffering with grief at the death of her beloved grandmother, Elizabeth Hannah. So clouded were her thoughts with alcohol and nightmares, I feared she might even hurt herself. Even as her grandmother's soul faded in and out, hovering between life and death, I also could hear her call as well.

_Please do not ignore a dying woman's last wish, Erik! Help my darling Veronica! Please...it is the least you could do after the suffering you caused our family. You owe it to us..._

_What prattle are you relating, Madame? I owe you and your brethren nothing!_

_Look into the history books, Mr. Phantom of the Opera. Look up the line of the Hannah family. We are descendants of Joseph Buquet...one of your many victims during your Reign of Terror in Paris..._

_Indeed!_

_Yes. His wife committed suicide out of grief. His children were orphaned and had to commit their own crimes just to survive. Much chaos resulted for the Hannahs due to your selfish obsession. For once, try to atone for your sins. Help my dear Veronica._

I was shocked at Elizabeth's revelation. Damn, I didn't even know that sod Buquet had a wife and children!

Reluctantly, I agreed to the old woman's request. Not so much because I gave a fig about her drunken stagehand of an ancestor, but because the girl needed me desperately.

I did something that I had never before attempted with a human. I called out to her.

_Write for me!_


	4. Remember the Play

_Remember the play..._

When was the last time Ronnie had seen a play? About a week ago...

A smile rose to her lips for the first time in days when she recalled the night of the "Man Behind the Mask". She had always loved the story of the Phantom of the Opera. This had been the best version yet, in her opinion. Tony Bradshaw had been entirely too handsome to play the part of the Phantom. And yet, he had been wonderfully moving and sensitive as he portrayed the monster who lived deep down underneath the Paris Opera House.

Ronnie and her boyfriend, Billy, had been hanging out in Deep Ellum one Friday night, having some dinner and drinks before going to see a midnight movie. When she saw the poster advertisement of the play held in a small black box theater, she could barely contain her excitement.

But she had quite a time convincing Billy to change their plans. He was more interested in seeing a late night showing of _The Rocky Horror Picture Show_. The thought of missing out on a "Phantom" play just to hear a bunch of kids and druggies yell profanities at a movie screen was akin to blasphemy in her opinion. When she offered to pay for it, blowing what little money she had left in her bank account for their tickets, he grudgingly agreed.

Midway through the show, she almost wished that they had just parted ways so she could have seen the show alone. During the entire show, he seemed to be sulking. At intermission, he said he was bored and wanted to leave, but she absolutely refused to go with him. During the second act, she could have sworn she heard him snoring right during one of the Phantom's love songs.

However, most of the time, she was too caught up in the story of the Phantom to let her annoyance with Billy get to her. The romantic songs combined with the beauty of Bradshaw's voice swept her away. When he would go into long speeches about his love for Christine, she wanted to cry. As he spoke of the horror of his face, she wanted to hold him in her arms and comfort him. She dreamed of being his lover and taking away all of his pain.

When the show was over, she hated to come back to reality. If only there could really be a man like Erik, the Phantom of the Opera...with such passion and romance and danger and charm and angst and...

"That show was so cool!" Ronnie enthused.

Billy said nothing.

"I'm going to see it again once I get hold of some cash."

She wondered how many term papers she would have to write for other students to scrape up the funds for another ticket.

"Not with me, you're not!" Billy argued. "I can't believe I missed _Rocky Horror_ for that garbage!"

Ronnie said nothing, absolutely stunned.

"Please tell me you're not serious," she finally stammered once she could talk again.

"Oh, get off it, Ronnie! That was just another dumb show about the faggot Phantom of the frigging Opera. That whole story is so 'been there, done that.' And I thought that actor guy was pretty lame actually."

She could not believe what she was hearing.

"Were we watching the same show?"

Billy said nothing.

"Some people just have no soul," she sneered.

"Yeah. Whatever. Look, my roommate's going to be out tonight. Do you want to come over to my dorm?"

Ronnie had never been particularly attracted to Billy. She only dated him a few times because her matchmaker roommate, Pam, talked her into it. At the time, she had been so lonely that she was willing to go out with almost anyone. But Billy had taught her a very important lesson. Sometimes it's preferable to be alone on a Saturday night with a Blockbuster video than with a creep that you can't stand!

"I don't think so, Billy."

Her icy tone made its mark. She never heard from him again. And good riddance!

Even though the Phantom had been indirectly responsible for her breakup with Billy, she could not regret that night. Never before had she been overwhelmed with so much emotion. And she yearned to write it down and get it all out of her system. But what could she write that had not been written about him? What could she say that had not been said?

She had made a few stabs at writing a story, a little romance with Meg Giry. But after awhile, she felt silly. With mid-terms coming up and the death of her grandmother, she completely got sidetracked.

But how could this Instant Messenger know all of that about her?

She began to type.

_Ron2812: You mean the play about the Phantom of the Opera?_

_Erik: The play about me..._

She snorted with mirth, almost spilling her soda at the same time.

_Ron2818: Yeah, right. And I'm the Bride of Frankenstein!_

_Erik: IT IS NO LAUGHING MATTER!_

_Ron2818: Okay. Are you Billy or one of his friends? Whoever you are, good joke. LOL. Ha ha. Goodbye._

_Erik: Good God, woman! What are you prattling on about? Are you mad!_

_Ron2818: Calm down, sweetheart. The men in white coats will come for you real soon._

_Erik: I don't know what you mean by that, young woman, but I suspect that you are being extremely insolent!_

_Ron2818: Look, don't take this the wrong way, but you are a fictional character made up by Gaston Leroux. Read the book sometime, you idiot!_

"Ronnie, are you awake, sweetie?"

There was a knock at her door.

"Coming, Dad."

Ronnie turned off the computer with a sigh. Whoever her prankster was, she was thankful to him for giving her a much needed laugh. For a few moments, she had almost forgotten about all of the sadness of the last few days.

However, when she went to bed that night, she became unnerved again as she recalled some of the unexplainable things that had happened. She chalked it up to drunkenness and nerves. Then she able to sleep.

* * *

Elizabeth's funeral was set for the following Saturday.

Ronnie used the spare time on Thursday and Friday to go back to class in Fort Worth and catch up with her notes and assignments.

Everyone had been very nice to her. Popular students in class who had never spoken to her before gave their condolences about her grandmother. She was moved by the sympathy, but really wished that people would just drop the subject. She had hoped that she could forget about death...at least for the next two days.

There was also one other compelling reason for her to go back to school.

The cast list of _The Skin of Our Teeth_ was posted. She remembered her audition. They had a new faculty member this year who seemed to be very impressed with her work in class. Although she had been shunned so far for every production, maybe this year would be different!

Hurrying to the Drama Department bulletin board, she found the list. Almost all of the parts had been initialed and accepted. She scanned the list once...twice...three times...

Her name was not on it.

Hot tears burned in her eyes.

This had been her last chance to be in a show before she graduated. And she had wanted to be in a play so much. Any part would do.

What good was it to be a theater major if you had never been in a play during your whole college career? Why wouldn't anyone give her one damned part? She could act just as well as any of those sorority chicks who spent more time on booze and boys than on their lines on stage!

Every audition for every play had been the same ever since she was a freshman. The teachers all remarked on her well-interpreted script readings or on how hard she must have worked on her monologue. Sometimes, she would even make callbacks. And over and over, it was always the same result...a posted cast list without her name.

All in all, she had spent four years slaving away in the Technical Theater Department. She had sewed buttons on costumes until her fingers bled, enduring the mean-tempered witch who ran the Costume Department. She had climbed up scary ladders to creaky catwalks, adjusting stage lights and terrified that she would fall and break her neck. She had sat for hours, dying of boredom in the University Box Office, selling tickets for the main stage shows. She had used power drills and power saws to make flats. But she couldn't even have one small part with one small line in one of their all-important plays!

She knew that she should have been an English major instead!

Well, to hell with them all! In two months, she would be out of this hellhole for good!

But it was cold comfort.

Also, it was so humiliating. She just knew that all of the other people in the Theater Department were either laughing at her or feeling sorry for her. And she wished that they all would go to Hell!

Ronnie ran to her dorm room. Grateful that Pam was not there, she collapsed onto the bed and punched her pillow over and over. "Those bastards!" she repeated over and over. "I hate them! I hate every stupid stinking one of them!"

The computer turned on all by itself, causing Ronnie to jump out of her skin.

MS Word opened up.

**WRITE FOR ME!** There were those familiar words in a 48 point Bold Arial font, sprawling all the way across the monitor.

"Oh, it's you again," she mumbled, disbelieving.

The words repeated over and over until they filled up the entire screen.

Ronnie blinked, feeling such a strange sense of unreality, like she was in a dream.

"You really are a ghost?" she asked.

**YES!** blared the computer screen.

"And you're...the Phantom of the Opera?"

**YES!**

For a moment, she could do nothing but sit still in shock.

"Well, damn!"


	5. A Higher Calling

After some contemplation, I was wondering about the wiseness of becoming Veronica Lindell's muse. The girl seemed to be too immature and insecure to become the true artist that she could be.

I did not understand why she was so concerned about what her teachers and peers thought about her at that learning institution. Indeed, my entire life was spent on the outside looking in so I had little sympathy for her plight. From what little I observed of her school, I did not consider her lack of education upon their stages any great loss. Most of the young men and women there seemed crude and undisciplined. If that was an example of such fine artistry, things seemed to be deteriorating to a sad state indeed!

Besides, I could not help but be offended. I had offered her my genius, given her a chance to find greatness. If she would just allow me into her psyche, she would attain heights so much greater than any paltry milestone she would achieve in this nursery school!

Yet she dismissed me as some sort of feeble joke! Why was I bothering with her?

Still, before flying from away from her forever, I tried to see things rationally. She would be leaving this place in two months. Then I would have her completely to myself. Why did the thought of such fill me with sublime satisfaction?

I observed the young girl sitting upon her bed, staring about with perplexity. She was dressed casually in a light cotton shirt and one of those scandalous leg-bearing items of clothing called shorts. Even in such a state of dress, she was a vision. There was something delicate about her, despite her sarcastic act of bravado she was attempting to put on.

I could sense her fear, and yet I knew that she needed me. She needed me desperately. That also satisfied me.

I resolved once again to reach her mind.

Abandoning my ghost's tricks upon her computer, I simply spoke inside her head.

_You are wasting your time shedding tears over those fools, child. _

Veronica spun about the room, looking up at the ceiling and all about, trying to see me.

_You will not be able to see me, Veronica. As I told you, I am a ghost and not of the living world._

"That voice…" she commented as if she were in a trance. "What a beautiful voice! You're really the Phantom of the Opera, aren't you?"

_Yes, Veronica, _I said impatiently. _Haven't we already established that?_

A mischievous expression made her eyes beam as she smiled. She was enchanting…oh, very much so!

"If you're really the Phantom of the Opera, do you think you could give Jennifer Garland a really bad case of laryngitis? Not permanent! But just long enough so that maybe I could convince my acting teacher to let me be her understudy in _The Skin of Our Teeth_?"

_Nonsense! I don't waste my time on trifles and neither should you! You have a higher calling now!_

She shook her head in disbelief before speaking out loud.

"I just don't believe this! I must be going nuts like Joan of Arc! What kind of a higher calling?"

_Write for me. Let your mind fill with my story and let it all flow out in words…_

"Um, didn't Gaston Leroux do that already?"

_LEROUX WAS A HACK!_

The booming violence of my voice caused her to tremble and give out a small scream. I tried to calm myself. There was no reason to scare the poor child out of her wits. She had nothing to do with Gaston Leroux's tripe.

"Okay…okay…sorry…Leroux was a hack. Sure, if you say so…" she babbled fearfully.

I attempted to calm her.

_You may write whatever you wish about me…whatever is in your heart. After all, you called out to me._

"I did?" She blinked in confusion. "When?"

_During the night of that play. Your imagination was running wild with ideas._

"Oh, well..." she stammered. "Phantom or...um...what do you want me to call you?"

"You may call me Erik."

"Erik, I had thought to write something about you, maybe a short story or a romance, but then things happened…and I just never really got around to it."

_Your grandmother died._

For a moment, she was stunned that I knew about Elizabeth, and then remembered that I was a ghost and simply nodded.

_You should write, Veronica. If you want to get your mind off of your grandmother and your peers' rejection, that would be the best thing for you._

"I would love to write," she admitted. "But the ideas just aren't there anymore. I think I've got a bad case of 'writer's block'".

_Writer's…what?_

She giggled a little at my confusion.

"Writer's block. That's when a writer just of can't come up with anything to say. Kind of like being paralyzed."

_Sounds like sheer laziness to me. But that is why I am here! I shall be your inspiration. Since you have no clear ideas, might I make a suggestion?_

"Well, sure, why not?"

_You could write the true story of my life._

"I really don't understand," she said as she shook her head. "Aren't you supposed to be fiction?"

_No, my dear. I was a real man. A wretched deformed man who lived underneath the Paris Opera House. And Gaston Leroux was a lying scoundrel! In order to sell books, he made me the most horrid sort of monster. _

"You mean you really didn't scare and kill people all of the time?"

_Oh, I most assuredly did, and in ingenious ways, if I may say so myself, although most of my murders were in self-defense. But I was not some sort of living skeleton with rotting flesh who was in love with death and slept in a coffin! Believe me, when one lives underground, one learns to relish any creature comforts possible. My bed was firm and large with silk and satin coverlets. I would never sleep in a coffin as if I were some sort of a vampire! And while my flesh was assuredly malformed and ugly, it was not rotten! I cannot argue that I was a man who had sinned too much, who had perhaps loved too much, who had played mind games with his prey in the most sadistic sort of way…but the way Gaston Leroux made me sound as crazy as a bedbug! That is what I resent highly! _

"Yes, that does suck!"

_I confess I became so fond of the Lon Chaney movie and the Andrew Lloyd Webber musical of Leroux's story that I have turned a blind eye to it over the years. But as my popularity has grown, so has my irritation with all of the fallacies. You shall write the truth about me!_

"Like...like a biography?"

_If you wish it… although that sounds horribly dull to me with all sorts of documentation and dates and references and such. You would also have to fend off scholars left and right who would insist that I never existed. A fictional account of my life as I really lived it would suffice. And you will use your writer's skill to tell my story in such a compelling way that all other versions shall be cast aside!_

"Do you really think that will work? I mean, I suspect the public will prefer a good story about a monster over a sad story about a deformed man hated and abused and abandoned and left to die underground forever unloved. The ghastly murders you committed made your fate bearable. But take those away, and people just get depressed and wouldn't care to read the story. Understand?"

_You shall make them care! You shall make them care about me and the truth!_

"But why me? Why have you picked me out to write your story?"

_When I observed you that night, I loved your style. You have wit and clear descriptive vision as well as sensitivity. Just the sort of voice I want. _

My words made her blush charmingly.

_Together, we shall create a new work about my life which will put all of the others to shame. My true story!_

"Wow, Erik, that really does sound awesome! I'm getting kind of jazzed to do it when you put it that way!"

_But I must insist on one condition if we are to work together…_

"What's that?"

_You must cease with this modern day gibberish. I cannot concentrate if I must constantly try to decipher every word you say._

She laughed out loud.

"It's a deal!"

Such a radiant smile appeared on her face that I would have reached out to embrace her if I could.

_First, however, some research may be necessary. Have you ever read the Leroux book?_

"I did, but I don't remember much about it. I think I'm going to need to reread it."

_Do so; then I shall return to you and we shall get to work._

"Erik, this looks like the beginning of a beautiful friendship!"

_I would be honored to be your friend, my dear, for I have known so few._

"Oh," she sighed in irritation. "I forgot that you've probably never seen the movie 'Casablanca' so you you don't get the reference!"

_No, but the name sounds vaguely familiar. I wonder if I came upon such a place in my travels in the East._

"Anyway, I guess I can download the Leroux version right now. You see, there's a version on a website that anyone can print out for free now."

_Blast it! So even more people can read his lies! We must hurry to set things right, Veronica. Otherwise, there shall be no chance for me ever to set the record straight!_

She agreed; and our partnership had begun.


	6. Interview with the Phantom

During the strains of the funeral music in the small chapel in Fort Worth, Ronnie sat in the front pew, helplessly watching her grandmother's open casket. Elizabeth Hannah looked more beautiful than she had in years, dressed in a lime green dress, her ebony-gray hair swirled about in curls along her shoulders. She looked twenty years younger and at peace. The mortician had done a good job, Ronnie thought with some cynicism. She had seen too much of her grandmother's suffering to be fooled by the illusion.

As relatives that she had never even met started to spill into the chapel, Veronica fervently wished that she could be anywhere but there. Every little thing seemed to set her into a near collapse of embarrassing tears, especially the sight of her grandfather standing by Elizabeth's coffin. He seemed like a man who had lost everything and wanted to be buried into the earth with her.

No, not again, Ronnie cursed. I will not cry! I will not cry!

_Remember the play…remember our work…_

The sweet manly voice in her mind seemed to be the only glue holding her together. She closed her eyes and thought about Erik, her mind calming. For a moment, she almost thought she could feel a light touch of finger stroking her hair, but it must have been her mind playing tricks on her.

She was quite exhausted.

Last night, she had spent hours poring over the text of Gaston Leroux's "The Phantom of the Opera," scribbling notes and observations to herself. She had read the novel once before, shortly after she had seen the Andrew Lloyd Webber musical for the first time. About three years ago, she had developed an extreme case of what she had called "Phantomitis," devouring all of the stories she could about the legend as she listened to the swelling notes of Michael Crawford again and again. That was when she read Leroux's book, but it so paled in comparison with the high romance that she craved that it barely even left an impression on her.

This time, having known what to expect, she found the story not only more bearable but rather enjoyable. And she picked up on the subtle erotic phrases of Leroux's writing that she had missed the first time, such as Erik's remarks to Christine regarding _Don Juan Triumphant_:

**"I will play you Mozart, if you like, which will only make you weep; but my Don Juan, Christine, burns; and yet he is not struck by fire from Heaven."**

And there was another one:

**"You see, Christine, there is some music that is so terrible that it consumes all those who approach it. Fortunately, you have not come to that music yet, for you would lose all your pretty coloring and nobody would know you when you returned to Paris. Let us sing something from the Opera, Christine Daae."**

Also, there was Christine's statement to Raoul:

**"Then know that each of my visits to Erik increased my horror of him; for each of those visits, instead of calming him, as I hoped, made him mad with love! And I am so frightened, so frightened…"**

Such phrases made Ronnie's imagination run wild. She thought of Erik, cursed with ugliness, blessed with a voice from the heavens, in determined pursuit of a woman, "mad with love". She dreamed of herself as Christine screaming in horror, scrambling about his lair to escape him. And eventually, she would become exhausted, out of breath from all of that running about in a tight corset…and she would collapse onto the cold ground. Erik would capture her, sweep her up furiously up into his arms and make her his bride! He would throw her upon the top of the coffin, ripping her nightgown from her shoulders and then he would kiss her with all of the passion he had been denied for so long. Under his clutches, she would become faint and dizzy until her blood would race with excitement…and her body would become possessed with an overwhelming urge to mate with him…and then…

_Shouldn't we stick to the task at hand, Veronica?_

The ghostly voice caused her to give out a startled gasp in surprise. He had been so quiet for so much of the day that she almost thought he had left her completely. And when she realized that he had seen the sexual scenario playing out in her mind, she was mortified.

"I think I'm getting tired, Erik," she whispered hoarsely. "I've finished the Leroux novel. I really need to go to bed because Grandma's funeral is in the morning."

_Of course. Pleasant dreams, Veronica._

All night, Ronnie tossed and turned, unable to free her mind of the sexy images of her fantasy yet not daring to indulge in them in case Erik was watching her.

The strains of "Amazing Grace" brought Ronnie back to the present. She shouldn't be thinking of such things at Elizabeth's funeral. It was so disrespectful. Yet, she remembered how her grandmother would rhapsodize about her favorite classic movie stars like Clark Gable and Lew Ayres and William Powell. "How those men send me!" she would say with a reminiscent grin. Ronnie smiled a little at the memory. Probably, her grandmother would understand.

* * *

After the reception, Ronnie finally was able to have a little peace and quiet. While it was nice seeing certain family members, she was too on edge to really enjoy their company. Her grandfather was so deep in mourning that everyone was worried about his health. Her mother was not only grieving but became so anxious about the funeral that she was literally sick to her stomach from all of the stress. Her father did what he typically did during times of turmoil. He became an impenetrable stone wall, barely talking to anyone except in short terse replies.

Escaping to the haven of her old bedroom, she turned on her computer and began to type up some of her notes she had made from the Leroux novel. She was all too ready to lose herself in the world of the Phantom.

There were several differences between the novel and the musical version.

As Erik noted, he was portrayed as a necrophiliac and a madman who had committed innumerable atrocities. Christine was intense and haunted and frail, even a bit insane. Or at least, so Ronnie thought. Raoul was not the hero of the Webber musical, but a bit of a pansy actually. And he was so possessive of Christine while he looked down at her common background at the same time. Ronnie found him quite annoying in the book.

She noted that in the novel, Erik had killed Joseph Buquet, the concierge who was hit by the chandelier, Count Phillippe Georges Marie Comte de Chagny who was Raoul's brother, along with countless of poor souls in Persia and India and so forth. In the musical, he had killed Buquet, Ubaldo Piangi (a man not so much as mentioned in Leroux's novel), and assumedly the whole audience with the chandelier.

_Let us ignore who I supposedly killed in the musical, _Erik said to her. _Andrew Lloyd Webber is a great showman and tended to overdramatize the murders. I cannot blame him; I would have done the same in his shoes. But he played up those murders for bloodthirsty dramatic effect_.

"Yes," Ronnie said, stopping her typing to speak to the voice in her head. "I always wondered why you would hang Buquet right in the middle of the 'Il Muto' ballet when you had already gotten what you wanted: Christine in the role of the Countess."

_Exactly. Why would I ruin her chances like that on purpose when I had worked so hard to make her an operatic star? Poor logic with the writing on that. And of course, they would have made the usual excuse: Erik was a madman! Really, it's infuriating!_

"Do you mind if I ask you a few questions, Erik. Sort of like an interview? I think it would help me get my thoughts in order for how to approach this."

_You may ask me anything, Veronica._

"So Buquet, the scene shifter, was really found hanging in the third floor cellar? Did you kill him, Erik?"

_I most certainly did! But not because the man was telling ghost stories! If I were to kill all of those who had told such tales about me, half of the corps de ballet at the Paris Opera House would have been slaughtered! Buquet was a scoundrel! He was not the 'serious, sober, steady man' that Leroux described. He was more like the 'Joseph Buquet' in the recent movie: a drunk, lewd man who would never shut up! And when Madame Giry slapped him and gave him the warning which I had instructed her to give, he and his ruffian friends had attempted to accost her and her daughter. I taught him that was a fatal mistake. Indeed, I should have been awarded a medal for ridding humanity of such a wretched creature!_

"Okay, so Buquet's murder was in Madame Giry's and her daughter's defense."

_Yes!_

"What about Phillippe de Chagny?"

_The fool did get caught in my trap, trying to go underground to find me. I won't apologize for that! You have no idea how many men have wanted to see me die when they have seen my face. I was lucky I survived my boyhood in the gypsy camps! Men have tried to beat me and rape me and murder me. I had to learn to fight back just like any animal alone in the wilderness. If he had minded his own business, he would not have gotten hurt. I had no contention with the Count._

"Okay, what about the chandelier falling down?"

_Ah, that was an incident which occurred in Eighteen Hundred and Ninety Six during a production of 'Thetis and Pelee'. A steel hawser holding one of the eight counterweights which kept the chandelier in position had been eaten through by fire caused by an electrical short circuit. The weight broke loose and fell through the ceiling. A woman was found crushed to death under the debris. You see how facts and legend blur into an indecipherable mix until no one any longer can distinguish what is true? Time and again, there are testaments and inquests into the events during my stay at the Opera House. Leroux attempts to disclaim them all with forgeries supposedly from the Dagoda! Well, I suppose it was easy enough to take advantage of a poor monster like me…_

"So the Persian existed?"

_Yes, but he never would have betrayed me to Leroux or de Chagny. He was perhaps one of the only friends I ever had. Yes, I was a well traveled architect. I had helped with the construction of the Garnier Opera House and made my home there. I had lived in India and Persia. And, yes, I was even an executioner there with the Punjab Lasso. But Leroux makes it sound as if I had a choice in the matter. It was either to obey the Sultana or die! Those poor people would have been killed at her hand regardless if I was the face of their doom or not! In fact,they probably died much quicker at my hand than with others._

"How did Leroux ever find out about you?"

_For many years, I merely roamed my underground as a ghost, yearning for my lost love to return. One night, Leroux showed up, exploring in places he had no business being. He had stumbled upon a skeleton left over from the Commune. And then he saw my spiritwithout my mask. I disappeared at once. But the die had been cast. He had been a journalist and gleamed out all sorts of rumors and speculations about me as men of that profession do. He had to write popular novels to pay off his gambling debts. And I became another one of his stories. The cur!_

"Was there anything he wrote about you that you consider accurate?"

_The affection I had for Christine. That was true enough. Although I was not the cruel brute that he portrayed me to be. I never would have drugged her or tied her up. I never would have physically harmed her in any way. I loved her…_

Even now, over a century later, Ronnie could hear the sadness in his voice as he spoke of Christine. And she felt horribly jealous. Stupid, really! To be jealous of a dead woman and a ghost!

"And you let her leave with Raoul de Chagny after she kissed you?"

_Yes. Perhaps the realization that she really did want me made me see just how foolish my dreams were. My life was not for her. She was so beautiful when I kissed her. And I knew that my fate of darkness and death was killing her spirit; so I let her leave with the boy. Then I ended my own life._

Ronnie gasped, tears stinging at her eyes.

_Do not waste your tears upon a poor monster like me, Veronica. That is all long done now. Although I am moved by your compassion…_

"You shouldn't have killed yourself, Erik," she said quietly, her head lowered. "Perhaps you could have found another woman who would have loved you for yourself. Someone who could have seen past your face."

_That was highly unlikely, my dear. Christine was the only woman even close to such an ideal. When she left me, she took all of my hope with her. Besides, no time remained for second chances, either with Christine or anyone else. All of Paris was out to hunt me down and kill me. I had little hope, except to die in a more merciful way than at the hands of a vengeful mob. I hung myself with my own Punjab Lasso. _

Ronnie let out a cry.

_Fitting, wasn't it? At any rate, the damage has been done and seems rather irreversible now._

"Not entirely," Ronnie swore. "I shall write your true life and do my best to do it justice. I promise."


	7. The Strange Affair

Pam Moore was becoming increasingly worried about her college roommate, Ronnie. Having been away from classes for a week or so for a special journalism assignment as part of her major, she noticed that her friend was beginning to act increasingly weird upon her return.

At first, she had noticed very that was little different about Ronnie, except that she seemed to be laboring away at some project feverishly on her computer. Ever since their days together in high school, Ronnie had always been a whiz at schoolwork, usually getting her homework done before the school day had even ended. And she had never been one for staying indoors too much. Usually, she liked to cruise around to the mall, the movie theater, and the restaurants. The phrase 'shop till you drop' was practically invented for her. Seeing her still for so long was really strange.

When Pam asked her what she was slaving away on with such devotion, Ronnie told her that it was a special project for her Creative Writing class. That made sense. Still, it was very unusual to see her friend sitting so peacefully at the computer in such an intense state of concentration, clicking away at her keyboard with a steady incessant rhythm.

Well, Ronnie had changed a lot over the last few years, she contemplated.

During their high school days, one of the reasons that Pam liked hanging out with Ronnie so much was because she had such a fun adventurous spirit, always wanting to do something wild and crazy. Whether it was going off on a weekend road trip or trying to crash dance clubs when they were underage, her friend was up for almost anything ever since they were freshmen struggling to get through their English class together under the tyranny of Ms. Douglas, a crotchety old dragon of a woman who looked suspiciously like Dana Carvey's Saturday Night Live impression of "The Church Lady", except for real with her blue curly hair and purple starched suit.

Had those days really been so fun and carefree? It was hard to remember now in the blur of college insanity. But things had really fallen apart for Ronnie after high school.

She had gotten mixed up with a jerk named Kevin. He had taken her to their senior prom and had become her first serious boyfriend. In fact, he had been her only real boyfriend that Pam was aware of. Billy didn't really count as a boyfriend; he was really more of a failed date several times over. In those days, Ronnie was a romance fiend, practically raised on historical romance novels and soap operas and tearjerker movies from Blockbuster. Being the incurable love dope that she was, she fell for Kevin head over heels, blind to any faults he had such as his having been held back a year in high school or his annoying habit of breaking their dates with lame excuses. And he wasn't even handsome but strange looking, sort of a cross between Matthew Broderick and Mick Jagger.

Pam had his number from the start. There was something about him. His parents were well known to be trailer trash druggies. All of his life, he had been shuffled about from one place to the next. She didn't know exactly how she had sensed that he was going to be bad news. Maybe it was because Pam's own mother had had an abusive boyfriend who was also no good. Whatever the reason, Pam always knew in her gut that he was only out to get into Ronnie's pants. She tried to hint as much to her friend, but then she thought that maybe she should just mind her own business. It wasn't like her own life was mistake free.

Then the inevitable happened. One day during their freshman year at school, Pam came into their dorm room to find Ronnie collapsed upon her lower bunk bed and crying. Apparently, the deed had been done. Without much coaxing on Pam's part, Ronnie admitted that she had had sex with Kevin. It had been her first time and had been nothing but pain and agony. After graduation, Kevin had become more or less a drifter, not going to school or holding down any jobs. Less than a week after their talk, he drifted away out of Ronnie's life for good, not even having the good grace to leave her a letter or a message on her answering machine. It was good riddance as far as Pam was concerned, but she hated to see how the light in her friend's eyes had died.

Time had gone by. During their sophomore, junior and senior years together, Ronnie had lost that love of life that she used to have. She smiled rarely and laughed even less. In fact, whatever sense of humor she had left was sarcastic and dark. Added with the frustration of constantly being rejected for theater roles, she was becoming downright morose. Unable to stand seeing her friend deteriorate, Pam had tried to fix her up with different guys, but none of them interested her.

When Pam heard about her friend's grandmother, she winced.

Ronnie of all people needed something good to happen to her for a change.

But Ronnie didn't seem so depressed anymore, Pam observed. In fact, as she worked away on her 'project', her face was almost serene without a trace of bitterness or cynicism. Sometimes, there was even a soft dreamy smile playing at her lips.

Another oddity since Pam had returned from her assignment was that there was a large theater poster hanging up on Ronnie's side of the room. It was a photograph of an actor named Tony Bradshaw from a production called "Man Behind the Mask" playing in Dallas. Dressed as the Phantom of the Opera, he stared out at the room with an expression of cruel intensity mixed with madness. Jeez, was she going to have to stare at this guy for the rest of her college life? He kind of creeped her out.

Pam had never been much into the whole "Phantom of the Opera" craze. She thought Andrew Lloyd Webber stole from his own past shows a little too much to be a real talent. And the story itself was just depressing and morbid.

When she asked Ronnie about the poster, her friend enthused about what a great actor Tony Bradshaw was.

"You should really see the play the next time you go to Dallas, Pam. It's so beautiful!"

Shaking her head, Pam was bemused. Even if Ronnie loved the play, why did she want to decorate her room with such a gruesome poster of a maniac? Oh, well, that was why they made ice cream in different flavors.

Pam had chalked it all up to an eccentric phase Ronnie was going through. But that didn't make living with her any easier.

In the throes of her writing, Ronnie would type away without stopping to even take a break to watch television or to go out for fresh air. Sometimes, she wouldn't eat all day. Pam would even go to the Student Center and buy her a sandwich because she was worried about how thin and pale Ronnie was getting. Sometimes, her roommate would type all night until morning, just barely lucid enough to drag herself to class the next day and then collapse into bed in a heap, practically snoring before her head hit the pillow.

And then one night, Ronnie burst into tears as she continued with the endless typing away at her keyboard.

"Are you OK, Ron?" Pam asked.

Ronnie jumped out of her skin at the sound of her voice. Turning towards Pam, she nodded slowly, her big brown eyes large and luminous with tears.

"I am all right, Pam, really. I'm just thinking of my grandmother."

"I know it's hard. But you'll get through this..."

"Yes," she nodded, sniffling as she typed.

Pam thought that Ronnie's sadness had passed. But then something happened in the middle of the night which unnerved her...

When she was only halfway sleep, she heard Ronnie whispering through sobs.

"I know you hate it when I cry. I'm sorry...but the part about the cage is so sad..."

Straining to see in the dark, she peered down at Ronnie from her upper bunk bed. She was quite alone, seated at her desk in her pink fluffy robe with nothing but the blare of her computer screen to keep her company. She seemed to be talking to her new poster...to that actor Tony Bradshaw.

"I don't mean to pity you, Erik...please don't be angry with me...I won't cry anymore, I promise."

She then reached for a Kleenex tissue and blew her nose.

Good God! Ronnie was talking to some sort of hallucination, just like those homeless drug addicts who hung out downtown in the slums of the city of Fort Worth! Was she turning schizophrenic or something? Was she on drugs?

"Maybe you're right. I'm really tired...Will you sing me to sleep? Please..."

A little while later, Ronnie laid down in the lower bunk bed for the night. Right when she was about to doze off, Pam was shocked when she heard the most erotic moans coming from her friend...the kind of moans you heard in NC-17 rated movies. Clenching her eyes shut, she tried to mentally block out just what exactly Ronnie might be doing down there.

And then she heard her friend whisper softly into the air.

"I love it when you sing to me, Erik...You have the most beautiful voice in the world...Don't stop...Please don't stop..."

There was no question about it.

Ronnie's cheese had finally slipped off of her cracker! Her elevator was not going all the way to the top floor! Her dogs were not all on one leash!

In short, she had gone stark raving nuts!

Freaked out, Pam had trouble sleeping the rest of that night. She even was ashamed to imagine that Ronnie might go all psycho on her and attack her with a large carving knife or something.

In the morning, while Ronnie was taking a shower, her roommate peeked over at the computer screen. Apparently, the MS Word placeholder was at the top of whatever this masterpiece was.

"**Erik's life was one of darkness from birth. He never knew his father. From his mother, he only knew fear and hatred. Born in the countryside of Rouen, he was seen as a monster from birth with a mask placed upon his face only moments after exiting from his mother's womb. In truth, he had been no monster, but a deformed baby, constantly bereft of love and attention no matter how pitifully he would cry for it. Such horrid beginnings for the man who would become the legendary Phantom of the Opera."**

This was no creative writing project, but a full-fledged novel reveling in this new obsession of hers, Pam observed. There were already three hundred pages that were typed up so far.

Curiously, she reached out to touch the PAGE DOWN key.

An electric shock struck out at her fingertip, causing her to pull back with a scream.

Suddenly, America Online turned on and an Instant Message popped up from a signer named simply Erik.

_LEAVE US ALONE!_

Pam had always been a logical person. She did not believe in anything mystical or supernatural. Hell, she thought yoga was a lot of bunk. Therefore, she could not credit what had happened before her eyes. Since she could not understand it, she denied that it happened at all.

Hurriedly, she dressed, grabbed her notebook and materials for her English class and left the dorm as quickly as she could.

If graduation were not only a month away, she would seriously consider moving into her own apartment right now!


	8. Where Night is Blind

Veronica Lindell had taught me a lesson. I learned that perhaps I could be wrong.

I realized that perhaps I should not have ended my mortal life so hastily. After all, I could have at least tried to escape the mob. Maybe luck would have been on my side. And perhaps, despite all of the odds, I could have found another woman to take as a sweet trusting young wife who would love me for myself alone. Someone like Veronica.

At first, our time together had been a simple blend of creativity and work.

When was it that our innocent collaboration turned into something dark and sensual?

It must have occurred shortly after we established our partnership…before that bothersome journalist roommate of hers arrived from her trip. That one evening when she was completing some research for our novel at the University Library...

A handsome boy with sandy curls, who must have been about twenty-two years of age, approached Veronica as she had been sitting with me quietly in the corner, making notes about the history of the little Sultana who had forced me to become an executioner. As he stopped to speak to her, her eyes lit up with feline interest. I hated the young whelp at first sight!

"Hi, Ron. What'cha doin'?" he asked in a highly impudent manner.

"Research..."

He noted the title of her book, reading it out loud.

"_The Laws and Customs of Persia in the Nineteenth Century_. Jeez, what is that for?"

"Costume History," the wicked child lied without hesitation. "How women were forced to wear certain garb of clothing during that time and what the religious significance was."

"Interesting. Just the kind of subject a whack job like you would write about, I guess."

The beaming smile on her face fell immediately. I could not help but feel instantly relieved that the boy was such a dolt.

"Thanks," she sulked.

"See you in class, Ron."

Veronica lowered her head and bit her lip. I could see the tears starting to flow yet again, staining the page of text before her.

I could not restrain my annoyance.

_God's thunder, child!_ I roared, making her jump. _Do not tell me that you give one whit about what that insolent boob has to say to you!_

She narrowed her eyes at my provocation.

"Tim Canfield is one of the most talented actors in the Theater Department," she retorted. "I got to do an acting scene with him in class once and learned a great deal from him. In fact, it was one of the best times I ever had in this wretched place. It's just a shame that he has to date Jennifer Garland. What does she have that I don't…besides popularity and money and good looks?"

_What nonsense you are spouting! It is true that your reputation and family circumstances could be better, but I will not hear you cast aspersions upon your looks. You are a fine specimen of a woman indeed!_

She made a most unladylike noise as she argued with me.

"I have no tan. I'm about ten pounds overweight, at least. My eyes are a boring color..."

_Your skin is a glowing ivory. Your womanly curves would drive a monk to give up his vows of chastity And your eyes are dark and mysterious..._

"I'm not a blonde."

_I love your dark curls. In my day, you would have had the whole of Paris at your feet._

"That's kind of you to say, Erik. It's a shame Tim doesn't see it that way though."

I had tried not to give in to my jealous nature, but it was impossible after such ambivalence to my compliments. Never was I a man to bestow sweet words lightly. For her to cast all of my sentiments aside in favor of that young ignorant puppy made me want to murder someone!

_WHY IN BLAZES DO YOU WANT HIM TO SEE YOU IN ANY WAY AT ALL! _

Veronica rose from her seat in fear, scattering her papers and books all about as she did so.

_He obviously lacks culture and breeding! I am not sure what a 'whack job' is, but it sounds rather insulting and no description for a lady! Really, Veronica, I credited you with better sense and taste._

"Well, at least he's alive," she mumbled.

_What was that?_ I asked threateningly, although I had heard her plainly enough. _WHAT WAS THAT!_

"AT LEAST, HE'S ALIVE!" she cried out loudly, stomping her foot on the ground. When the librarian and other students stared at her with fear and suspicion, she quickly checked out the book and started back towards her dormitory.

For some time, we did not speak to each other.

Veronica flew about the dorm room, brushing her hair, painting her nails, occupying herself with all sorts of silly female activities. Anything besides working on our book…on my story.

Suddenly, she took her hairbrush and threw it against the wall, hitting Bradshaw's picture directly in the face.

"You are the one insisting on haunting me!" she stormed. "Why do you have to be so damned mean to me while doing so?"

_I have never been mean to you, Veronica. When have I ever said an unkind word to you? Was I the one who so charmingly called you a 'whack job'?_

She folded her arms across her chest, stubbornly silent.

_Why do you speak to that poster when you are talking to me? Do you really think that I look like that conceited actor?_

"I don't like talking to an empty room all of the time! I feel stupid when I do that!"

_Why do women always complicate matters with such silly trivialities? No one is here! Why do you care in what direction you are speaking?_

"It makes me feel funny!"

_I should have known better than to get mixed up with a woman again. You would have thought I would have learned from my last mistake._

"Don't you dare compare me to Christine Daae!" she screamed out into space. "Don't you dare!"

_Well, you are just like her, throwing away everything for a pretty face._

"Maybe she didn't do that because of Raoul! Maybe she did it because of you! Maybe all of your murdering and bullying and frightening people sort of killed the romantic mood for her! Did you ever think of that, genius?"

Hurt beyond belief, I no longer spoke to her at all. Indeed, I was on the verge of just disappearing back into oblivion again, but I couldn't bear the thought of leaving her.

For several hours, we remained silent towards one another.

Sitting at the computer, Veronica scowled.

"Erik?" she asked.

I did not answer.

"Please come back. I'm sorry I said what I did."

She bowed her head down, looking completely dejected.

"It's not easy…"

Although her words ended, I heard her silent thoughts: "It's not easy…loving a ghost."

Veronica Lindell had taught me another lesson. Even as a spirit, my heart could still ache with pain. How unfair to find a woman to love me now!

_You are forgiven, Veronica. Of course, you want to be with the living. Indeed, you have no choice._

At the sound of my voice, her eyes gleamed with relief.

"Why do you always call me Veronica? Why don't you call me 'Ronnie' or 'Ron' like everyone else?"

_You are too beautiful to be called 'Ron' or 'Ronnie'. 'Veronica' suits you. I like the name. It is feminine and rather exotic sounding._

She laughed a bit at my musing.

"No one has ever said that about my name before."

_It is late, my dear. Shall I sing you to sleep tonight?_

"Oh, I would love that, Erik. You know how much I love your voice."

Even as a ghost, I had not lost all of my powers. I could still hypnotize and control a woman's mind with my voice, even from the dead. As she reclined upon her bed, I began to croon to her with the most seductive song in my repertoire. Although she was no maiden, her body and mind were practically untouched for my purpose. She was still impressionable and innocent enough for me to take her psyche and mold it to my own with my song.

She gasped out, eyes wide in the darkness as I caressed her with my voice.

"What are you doing to me, Erik? Oh, my God, I feel so strange!"

_Simply singing to you, my sweet Veronica. Does my voice please you?_

"Oh, yes..." she sighed, shivering slightly.

For a moment, I hesitated before continuing. Was it wise to manipulate her in such a way? For if I continued, she would possibly be ruined for any other man. Yet, I wanted that. I wanted to bend her to my will. I wanted her to be so dependent upon me that no boy would ever turn her head again.

Some would accuse my actions as being akin to rape. I contend that is nonsense. Very special conditions must exist for a woman to truly be suggestible to the magic of my voice. If a woman is unwilling to receive pleasure, my song would simply be that: merely a melody with romantic words. Only women of a certain temperament could experience bliss from my voice. Part of that temperament is willing desire.

Yet Veronica was a surprise to me. No woman, not even Christine, had been so sensitive and responsive to my singing.

I felt a great deal of satisfaction as I watched her body suffuse with a rosy pink blush as I continued to torment her senses in the warm and welcoming cocoon of her mind. No schoolboy could possibly take her away from me now. What a vision she was as she writhed about on the bed in her sky blue nightgown of silk, perspiring and shaking with passion. Moaning out in helpless pleasure, her cries were in perfect accord with my musical notes! As I reached the climax of my song, she screamed with violent tremors of release before swooning into a deep sleep.

Even in her repose, I could not bear to leave her side. In her dreams, I took her with me to dance by moonlight aside the Seine in Paris, crooning in her ear softly as I held her close. She would tremble sweetly in my embrace, wanting so much more from me than I could ever possibly give her.

Once having tasted the forbidden fruit, she was insatiable, longing for the sensations I alone could give her. Every night, she would beg me to sing her to sleep as desperately as a drug addict needing his opium. Every night, I was her willing slave.

And I knew I was as foolish a ghost as I ever was a human.

For once again, I had fallen hopelessly and passionately in love with no chance of ever seeing my dreams reach fruition.


	9. My Name is Veronica

When Veronica looked into the mirror, she no longer seemed to recognize herself.

Yes, Veronica…she no longer went by the name of Ronnie…

Quietly, she studied herself in the mirror. Although her pallor was pale from all of her hours inside the dorm, she seemed to glow from some inner light, making her appear as if she herself were some gothic heroine from times of old as her long mane of black curls flowed down her back uncut. The ten pounds of unwanted weight melted off from long walks around the campus discussing the novel with Erik and from simply working so hard that she forgot to eat.

The rest of her college career went by in a blur of frenzied writings in the day and writhings in the night. And she floated through life in a state of dreamlike sublime happiness as she served her phantom, pounding as furiously at her keyboard as the subject of her book would pound upon his pipe organ deep in the catacombs. Their union had created a cocoon for her, protecting her from pain. No more was she concerned with the opinion of her peers. No more was she upset about her lack of roles upon the university stage. No more did she suffer with grief.. Nothing mattered but pleasing her Master.

She had never felt so fulfilled or content. Especially during the nights when Erik would sing to her…

When he sang to her, it was not sex exactly. How could it be? Veronica had never even liked sex.

Okay, she did not like sex the one time she had it with her ex-boyfriend, Kevin. For so long, she was sure that she was a person with a highly passionate nature. After all, she loved a good romantic story or a hot sex scene in a movie. But when the moment had finally come when she lost her virginity, she felt nothing but the most agonizing pain as he had pounded into her. It had not been rape. She had anxiously wanted to know what it was like to finally 'do it'. But he seemed insincere in his attempts to make her comfortable. And apparently he had been uncaring since he bolted out of town only days later. Maybe he was just too inexperienced himself to be a good lover. She did not know. And she had accepted the fact that her questions would always be unanswered about it. She tried not to think about him too much as it upset her. In fact, she did not think about sex too much either.

Except when she was swept away by a good love story…like the Phantom's story…

No, when Erik sang to her, it was not sex. She was alone, not even touching her own body. Yet it felt as if she were bound and helpless as his voice became a tangible thing which stroked and tickled and teased her most secret places. And on and on it would go until she would shake uncontrollably in release. Sometimes, even that would not be enough for her ghost lover. Sometimes he would sing another song and then another, making her reach that peak over and over until her body shut down. Then she would pass out into such a deep sleep that it bordered on unconsciousness. And she immediately began to crave those nights of strange sensations.

And her dreams were always so romantic. She felt as if she were always held in a pair of protective arms. They were Erik's arms. She always sensed that, even if she could not see his face or even his mask. And they would be in Paris or Persia or India, some beautiful scenic location where they would dance in each other's arms, completely alone and happy. She was addicted to her dreams as well.

Veronica survived the last two months of her college days under Erik's tutorage. There had been the momentary panic she had felt regarding her finals. She realized those dates had come and she had not so much as cracked open a book. Erik reminded her that she had her own personal ghost. Veronica directed him towards the smartest student in the room and he would proceed to read off the answers of the girl's test. True, it was cheating, he said. But they had more important things to accomplish during their time together. Why waste hours studying away at subjects that she could care less about when there was a masterpiece to be written?

Their novel was about three quarters completed.

Moving back to her parent's home in Dallas, she spent most of her time buried in her old room typing away. Her parents did not notice anything strange about her behavior. Or if they had, they didn't say anything.

She got a job as a temp for a law firm, mainly typing up dictation tapes. When she had downtime or had reached the end of a tape, sometimes she would switch to another file in Word and work on the novel, e-mailing the copy to herself so that she could pick up with the story at home.

Now that the burden of college was out of the way, she could truly immerse herself into the Phantom's real life. And the more she learned of him, the more sorrowful she felt although she tried not to express such feelings as she knew he hated such sentiments. And she wished that they had lived together in the same time. She could have made him happy. She would have loved him, no matter how horrid his face. If only…

* * *

When the novel was finally completed, Veronica thought that somehow there should be some sort of celebration to be had. But she did not know exactly what would be appropriate to do with a ghost. Erik suggested that she go see "Man Behind the Mask" again, as she had often mentioned wanting to see it a second time.

"I don't know if I care to now. After all, I've got the real article with me."

_But did you not like the performance of that actor? That Tony Bradshaw fellow…_

"Well, sure."

_Did you not find him attractive?_

"Well, jeez, Erik. Who wouldn't?"

_Go see the play, Veronica. Enjoy yourself._

"Aren't you going to be with me?"

_No, I've had my fill of contemplating my life story for a while. But you should go. I shall return to you tonight and sing to you._

Veronica squirmed in anticipation.

"It shall be a long night."

_Flattering child…_

* * *

"Wow!"

The noise startled Veronica out of her dreamlike state.

"Ronnie! My God, wow!"

She turned to see Pam Moore sitting only a few chairs away from her at the play.

"Pam, it's so good to see you!"

Veronica stood up to give her old friend a hug. She had missed Pam. Their last month of college, Pam spent virtually all of her spare time at her boyfriend's apartment. And while that gave Veronica a lot of time to be alone with her naughty ghost, she still wished she could have seen her roommate from time to time.

Pam looked very trim and neat in an elegant little black dress, her auburn hair held back with silver combs. Veronica had always been envious of Pam's figure. She was lithe, just like a magazine model. No one would ever call her 'voluptuous' or 'zoftig', insulting her under the guise of compliments.

"Ronnie, you look amazing! I would not have known you!"

"Do I? Thanks!"

Veronica had dressed up for the occasion, wearing a short little Chinese silk dress with a pattern of flowers. Erik had insisted that she look pretty tonight and would not allow her to leave the house as she had intended to in her tee-shirt and jeans. She pulled her hair tightly back in a curly do. And she wore her best and most uncomfortable pair of strappy black sandals for the occasion.

"Getting out of that place must have agreed with you."

"Yes. Pam, what are you doing here?"

"I have a job at the local paper here. They wanted me to interview Tony Bradshaw after the show is over. We're supposed to go to a bar called Charlie's after the show. Hey, you want to come along? We could catch up on old times."

"Wouldn't I be in the way?"

"No, just hang out during the interview. And then we can really have some fun."

"I'd like that, Pam. It's good to see you again."

"Likewise, Kiddo."

* * *

The play was still enthralling, even if Veronica was painfully aware this time of all of the inaccuracies. And Tony Bradshaw was definitely a man easy on the eyes, even in his mask and stage makeup! With his masterful voice and perfect characterization of Erik, she still thought that he was one of the best actors she had ever seen either on stage or screen.

When the show was over, tons of women stood by the stage door exit, wanting an autograph from him.

"Jeez, this is going to be a long night already," Pam smirked. "Why don't you go ahead and go to Charlie's and get a drink? We'll catch up with you there."

"Oh, okay."

Veronica would not have agreed had she not wanted to spend time with her old friend so badly. She hated hanging out in bars by herself, not that she hardly ever did. She felt like just another piece of meat in the meat market for the drunks to ogle. But she went anyhow, ordering a small rum and Coke. She dared not drink too much because she had to drive home that night.

Charlie's was an Irish pub, filled with jovial types who were singing and yelling across the room and raising all sorts of havoc. Really, she didn't know how Pam was going to get any work done in this place! After some time, she occupied herself at the jukebox in the corner while she waited, trying to find a song that she might like.

Suddenly she was whirled about by the shoulders and slammed into a hard male body.

A mouth ground into her own, kissing her thoroughly. She opened her eyes wide in surprise and beat gingerly at the stranger's shoulders, trying to make him get the hell off of her. She could not even see him because his face was too close, but she did know that he was as strong as an ox. And then, the pressure of the kiss lessened as his hands roamed all about the curves of her body insistently. She couldn't believe it but she was becoming incredibly turned on by this rude stranger. She had been kissed before, but never like this. Kevin had not even kissed her this way. The sensations radiating throughout her body made her feel horribly guilty.

"Forgive me, Erik," she screamed in her mind. "This isn't my fault!"

Unable to escape the man's grasp, she had no choice but to let him finish having his way with her, her insides seeming to melt into butter. He took his time about it, leisurely exploring her mouth as he held her hair in a tight grip, bending her backwards until she would have fallen had she not been so tightly held in his grasp.

When he at last freed her, she pulled back and hauled off a good whack across his face.

It was Tony Bradshaw standing there before her, his hand touching his cheek where she had slapped him!


	10. A Stolen Kiss

I knew what I had done was wrong, but I could not help myself.

Too many nights, I had watched Veronica and yearned for her touch. And I had learned that mental desire could be just as brutal as the physical desire of a human body.

On such a night, after I sang her to sleep, I glared at Tony Bradshaw's poster on the wall. How lucky he was to be alive and handsome! How wasted life is for the living! I resented him bitterly. And I recalled how persistently he had called for my help before I found Veronica. That must have been when the inspiration hit…

I suggested that she go see his show once more, knowing all along what I would do. I even made her dress exactly the way that I wanted her to look in her bright red scandalously short outfit.

Just a kiss on her lips…that is all I wanted. Just one kiss.

As soon as I left Veronica's mind, I felt bereft. Yet I knew that if my plan reached fruition, it would be worth the agony. And I sought out Tony Bradshaw

If the strolling player wanted me so badly for his career, he would have me but for a price.

Only half an hour before the performance, I found him. When he sat in the dressing room, listening to his odd contraption of what I believe are headphones and a CD player, trying to summon up the necessary emotional resources to play my part, that was when he was the most vulnerable to me. I forced myself into his mind brutally. His body even jolted violently when I did so but I did not care. What was a little agony when he had a career of fame and fortune awaiting him?

Tony Bradshaw gave the best performance yet with my help. But after the show ended, I did not leave him. In fact, I pushed his psyche aside with a little aid from a small injection of heroin that he had stashed in his bag.

After I felt in complete control of his body, I removed the wig and stage makeup, looking into the mirror with fascination. So this is what it was like to be handsome and without a mask! And Tony Bradshaw was a fine specimen of a man, no question about it. With his raven black hair, swarthy complexion and black flashing eyes, he was indeed a dangerous looking hero, like out of one of those horrid romance novels that Veronica so loved to read. And his figure was trim and muscular in a tight pair of blue jeans and a black flowing shirt which brought out the best of his brutish hairy chest. He even had a charming gold chain to wear about his neck. I tested out a dashing smile at my reflection in his body. Ah, with a face and body like this, I could have ruled the world!

But I had a higher purpose than to dream of what it was like to be Don Juan. I had to find Veronica.

I was unprepared for the swarm of females who flocked to my side as I left the dressing room. Women of all ages and sizes, but many of them young with their perky flesh eager for my touch. If I had not had only one woman in my heart, I should have enjoyed such prospects thoroughly. As it was, I smiled and winked at them, scrawling a few unreadable signatures on their theater programs. They asked me questions I either did not understand or know the answers to, so I tried to be as brief as possible, even rudely ignoring some of them.

My skills at finding my way unseen throughout a theater was to my benefit this night, for I found that I had to return to my dressing room and find an alternate exit to escape all of those women. Then I had to find the tavern named "Charlie's". Fortunately, there was a big green and white sign in electric lighting to help me find it's locationacross the street from the theater.

When I arrived, I made my way through the smoky darkness. Young men and women were all there, indulging in alcohol and brawling and lovemaking. And I spotted her right away, standing by a big machine with all sorts of colorful lighting. It was as if she had been waiting for me there all of her life.

I reached out for Veronica, eager to experience everything she had to give me. She smelled of roses. At first, she was understandably frightened of me. But I persisted in exploring everything I dared in those brief moments. Her mouth was soft and giving way to my own greedy mouth, for once unfettered by a mask. I smoothed my hands along the curves of her ravishing red dress, feeling the silken swell of her hips and breasts. I clenched a fistful of her dark curls as I persisted in assaulting her mouth with my own. And I felt her body relax and become pliable under my forcefulness. She moaned with helpless pleasure, causing me to ache intensely.

Having had no physical body for so long, I had forgotten how powerful the sexual urge is in a man's body. For if we had not been in a public place, I quite possibly could have gone mad, stopping at nothing to know every secret that Veronica's sweet flesh had to offer. As it was, I was glad when she slapped me hard across the face. Not so much because I richly deserved it (which I most certainly did), but because it tempered that gnawing desire in my loins somewhat.

When I backed away from her, I was so satisfied at the sight of her. Her hair was mussed. Her eyes were wide from shock and slightly drugged from pleasure. As she gasped for breath, her body seemed to shake from our embrace. She stumbled awkwardly as if she were about to fall down. I wanted so much to take her back into my arms and kiss her again and again…to be with her forever.

But I had to play my role.

"Oh, my God!" I shouted out in Bradshaw's unfamiliar English accent. "I am so sorry. I thought you were someone else!"

Veronica only stood still before me, pressing her fingers to her lips.

"Is everything okay, ma'am?" A big burly man came up to us, obviously ready to show me the door. "This man ain't botherin' you, is he?"

"It was just a misunderstanding," Veronica said softly, unable to tear her eyes away from my own.

Once the odious bully had left us, I continued to speak to my sweet Veronica.

"I vow that from the back you look exactly like a woman I am acquainted with. Please accept my apologies."

She nodded shyly.

"I hope I didn't slap you too hard."

The dear girl! How I loved her so! I could not hold back a smile.

"As you said yourself, it was a misunderstanding."

She smiled back sweetly, making my heart melt.

Of course, her pesky reporter roommate decided to show up at the most inopportune moment.

"Tony Bradshaw!" she called out. "There you are! I've been looking for you everywhere. Wouldn't you know my flirt of a friend would have you all to herself cornered by a juke box? This chick has a serious Phantom fetish!"

We sat down at a small table. As Pam Moore shouted out questions at me over the loud raucous excuse for music, I became increasingly annoyed and anxious. Obviously, I was out of my element now. She was asking me questions about Tony Bradshaw's birthplace in England and his childhood. I was making up lies left and right. Also, I could feel Bradshaw's psyche insistently pushing away at me, wanting his body back.

I made up an excuse that I was feeling poorly and hurriedly left the bar. Once outside, I departed Tony Bradshaw at once so that I could return to the warm soul of Veronica. Apparently, the subject of Bradshaw was completely forgotten by the two women after they made a few comments about what a weird man he was. Then they chattered away like magpies, reminiscing about their girlhood friendship. As I came back to Veronica, she sighed with relief and smiled pleasantly. She could not have been aware of my presence, yet instinctively her body knew her ghost had returned.

That night, Veronica had been horribly worried that I would be angry with her. She told me all about how Tony Bradshaw had assaulted her in a bar and asked if I had seen it.

_Yes, my child. I remember the moment vividly._

"Then you know that I did not want to kiss him! He forced me!"

_Of course, love. He was an unspeakable cur. Let us speak no more on the matter. Shall I sing you a song? One of your favorites that will make you forget all about that depraved actor?_

Veronica beamed with pleasure as she undressed and laid back upon the bed, stretching like a cat with her hands gripping firmly at the bedposts.


	11. Selling His Story

"The story is good, but you need to sex it up a bit," the burly agent said from behind his desk. 

Veronica could not believe her ears.

"The story of the Phantom of the Opera is about a man who has never known love of any kind. How am I supposed to 'sex this up'?"

"You're the writer," the jerk shrugged indifferently.

As Veronica drove home from downtown Dallas, she moaned in frustration.

_It is not so horrid, Veronica. I suppose we could go into more details with the Persian orgies. We could talk more about Christine's looks and how much I wanted her._

The last thing Veronica wanted to do was to dwell on Erik's feelings on Christine when she was still alive.

"I hate this. I'm just not any good at it."

_At what?_

"Sex!"

_I find that very hard to believe, my dear, especially when I sing to you._

"Well, that's different," she said, blushing.

_Is it?_

"Well, that's in the privacy of my bedroom. But I can't write a lot of profanities for the whole world to see. I just can't do it!"

_Veronica, you are a mature adult. This is not such a monumental task. We want our book to be a success, do we not?_

"Jeez, why can't you just scare the agent into taking it? Aren't you good at that sort of thing?"

_I have found such methods can backfire. I learned that the hard way._

Veronica grit her teeth in frustration.

* * *

After arguing with some time with her ghost about whether or not to 'sex' the story up, she finally gave in. But she had to go to a bookstore to buy the most erotic anthology she could find for ideas since now she was truly out of her element. 

Closing the door of her room, she began to pore through the stories. Good Lord, she was getting quite an education and getting rather uncomfortable about how the lewd words and imagery were affecting her. She truly was repulsed and stimulated at the same time at some of the short stories she scanned through.

"Erik, are you looking at this?"

There was no answer.

Good, she thought to herself, for the thought of reading this stuff with another man, even a ghost, was too much for her.

But ideas started to form.

Veronica added a few pages about Erik being forced to watch a Persian orgy, practically stealing a scene from one of the short stories she read. Then she added a section where Erik touched Christine in her sleep in a very erotic sort of way while singing to her. And she was completely making these parts up. But she assumed that Erik would correct her if he was offended by them.

With an effort of stoicism, she wrote the chapters out on her computer, trying not to think of all of the times she had to type the words 'breast' or 'flesh' or 'lust'. Again, she wondered if Erik was watching what she was writing. He must be, but if so, he was not making his presence known. Perhaps he was trying to give her a little bit of privacy with this embarrassing task.

Within a week, she managed to get the revised version of "My Name is Erik" back to the literary agent.

"Wow, this is hot!" the agent said, making her blush. "Now this might sell!"

The local publishing house bought the story, but it mainly sat along the back of the bookshelves in various eclectic stores around Dallas, ignored for the most part.

"So all of this work has been done for nothing?" she whined.

There was no answer from Erik at all. She had not heard from him in days. Was he angry at her for having failed him?

"Erik?" she called out again with frustration.

Silence...

"Well, fine, be that way!" she said childishly, trying not to think the worst.

With determination, Veronica began to type an original story all her own. She called it "Bride of the Phantom". It was inspired by all of those pornographic stories that she had to read in order to write that first book. At first, she just did it out of the sheer frustration of being deprived of her night visits with her Phantom. But then she started to get into the story. It started out simply enough. Unable to be with the woman he loved, her fictional version of Erik kidnapped the first beautiful girl that he found in the Paris Opera House. She was a sweet young virgin. He took out his frustrations upon her body, turning her into a sexual addict who craved his touch, which led to all sorts of different scenarios and positions. The story was written in a week.

This Erik was not like the real man at all. But if the readers wanted sensational smut, she would give it to them. She figured that if this book would sell with an audience, that would enhance sales of the other book. The real book.

The agent gave her no trouble at all with selling "Bride of the Phantom". Sex sells.

* * *

The Mystery Bookstore in Dallas quickly put "Bride of the Phantom" and "Erik's Story" in the display window at the front of their store. "Bride of the Phantom" was their number one seller in the local authors category. 

Soon, the books were distributed by the big bookstores like Barnes & Noble and Border's.

Veronica Lindell started to become a local celebrity, but she wished that she had used a pseudonym. At home, her parents did not say anything but she could tell that they were embarrassed about the sort of book their daughter had published. At work, she would get all sorts of little comments and leers, bordering on sexual harassment. At church, the preacher practically gave a sermon against her.

All of her life, Veronica had fought to be recognized for her talent. Now that she was, she quickly found that fame was becoming a curse on its own. For every person who would come up to her claiming that her books were the best they had ever read, she had another person who would hand her a religious pamphlet, urging for her to save herself.

The most amazing thing of all was the message left on her answering machine about a month after publication. Tony Bradshaw wanted to meet with her to discuss the opportunity of making "Erik's Story" into a companion piece play to "Man Behind the Mask".

Veronica wanted to feel happy. She tried to feel happy. But the sadness that invaded her soul would not release her.

Sucess seemed so trivialsomehow without Erik there to share it with. He had been gone for months now. And there was not a moment where she did not call to him, where she did not dream of him, where she did not need him like a drug. But even a drug addict could eventually recover from addiction. For Veronica, she just felt like she wanted and wanted and wanted...with no end in sight to her cravings...and no relief...

When she would try to drown herself in her writing, the inspiration just wouldn't come. Her muse had left and there was no more love or life to write about.

Ironic that once more she had been abandoned by a lover. But he was no lover, he was a ghost! Yet he seemed more of a lover than any real lover ever could be. Why did he leave? He had not seemed upset about the kiss with Tony Bradshaw. If he had been upset about the erotica retelling of his story, he had no one to blame but himself. After all, he was the one who had encouraged her to follow the agent's advice to 'sex up' the story. So where was he? And would she ever see him again?


	12. The Business Meeting

"Blast and damn it all!"

For a moment, I nearly hurled the telephone machine against the wall of Tony Bradshaw's fancy bachelor apartment. I would never be used to these ridiculous contraptions, never!

But time was of the essence. I could no longer bear to be parted from my Veronica. The time had come for our new life together.

Once more, I proceeded to use Bradshaw's hands to call the intricate series of numbers on the telephone machine. What with "zip codes" and "area codes" and all of the damned codes, I could not see how anyone managed to function in this modern society.

"Hoyt Limousine..." the voice answered. A rather young voice that sounded like the owner could have been one of Veronica's old classmates at that silly learning institution.

"I would like to retain the services of a motorcar, if you please..." I demanded.

"What?" the voice asked dumbly.

"I would like a motorcar for hire, with a competent driver, of course..."

An interminable hesitation followed.

"And when would you like this car for, sir?"

"Posthaste."

"What?"

"Er...as soon as possible."

"Okay, sir..." The employee was apparently laboring on what to say next. "If you want a limo right this second, it's going to cost you around three hundred dollars."

"WHAT!" I bellowed. "That is absolute robbery!"

Although I had no lack of funds out of Bradshaw's personal bank account, I still could not bear to throw money away so foolishly.

"I'm sorry, sir, but if you look at our website, it says that we need 24 hour notice for car reservations."

The thought of going back on the internet filled me with more abhorrence than another wrestling match with the telephone machine.

"Maybe you should look into a rental car agency instead."

I nearly smarled.

Yes, of course. That would be an excellent idea if I could drive a car!.

The truth was I had not yet conquered the paralyzing fear of such a notion. It was horrific enough just to contemplate the ride in one of those speeding boxes at breakneck speed. The thought of actually driving and steering such a suicide machine made me feel faint. And this was from a man who would leap across catwalks and swing on chandeliers! I simply could not do it. Not yet. I would have to pay the robbers their money.

"Very well. You shall receive your fee upon the motorcar's arrival."

After giving the woman the necessary information as to where the motorcar should fetch me, I hung up the telephone machine in disgust.

This modern life was not for me at all. I hated it! Glaring about the apartment decorated with red and black leather furniture, I sulked in dismay and self-doubt. This was just too mad a scheme, even for me, the omnipotent ghost Phantom!

This modern life was too much for me.

As I dressed for the meeting with Veronica, glaring at Tony's handsome body and face with petulance, I considered the matter.

Actually, there were some inventions of these times that were quite useful and enjoyable Although I did not like to contemplate such indelicate matters, I could not help but marvel at the invention of the toilet. So much cleaner and efficient than an outhouse or chamber pot. And the large bathtubs were simply divine. For hours, I would soak in the hot water in sublime bliss, taking in the scents of all of Bradshaw's various soaps and creams.

I also found the television set to be quite enjoyable, although most of the stories told on it were silly beyond belief. There was one show I had become quite fond of...a contest called "_Dancing With the Stars_". As I watched the couples go through elaborate new dances with such inexplicable names as the 'foxtrot' and the 'cha cha cha', I felt reminiscent of the days when there would be such glorious masquerade balls at the Paris Opera House. I especially loved the waltzes for they reminded me of home. Many of the other shows were too confusing for me to watch for long. There were dramatic serials in the afternoons with horrid dialogue that would make Shakespeare weep. There were news programs telling the most lurid and ghastly tales imaginable, often using terms I did not quite understand such as 'bioterrorism'. There were short little half-hour programmes which I assumed were comedies since there was fake laughter sporadically bursting out of nowhere in timed intervals. All very educational and quite maddening.

Yes, I had not realized quite what I had bargained for in attempting to permanently overtake Tony Bradshaw's body. What had I been thinking?

The answer was simple. I had not been thinking, only feeling and lusting and yearning.

It was that damned piece of tripe we had written for that agent that was responsible for all of this. I should have followed Veronica's advice, killed the agent and been done with it. Instead, we had to 'sex up' the story.

Just recalling the endless research of reading one erotic tale after another made my new virile body harden in anticipation. But rather than groan in agony, I loved the renewed feeling of sexual frustration. I was alive again and I loved it, discomfort and all!

My one nightly excursion with the possession of Tony Bradshaw's body had started the fire. The erotic passages of our novel added fuel to the flames. Once again, that all-consuming hunger started up inside of me again. Even in my ghostlike state, I could not stop the yearning. Indeed, I wanted to suffer and lust. I wanted to live once more. But most of all, I wanted Veronica. I wanted her every bit as much as I had ever wanted Christine, perhaps more. No longer was I willing to live with merely melodic masturbation in the dark. Mind control games was no longer enough. Being a voyeur to Veronica's writhing in the dark was no longer enough. I needed...I needed...

And Tony Bradshaw was the instrument at my disposal, the means to an end.

And that was when my master plan came into fruition.

If Tony Bradshaw wanted my presence so badly, he should have me. Oh, yes, the young buck would have more of me than he could ever want! Indeed, he would never be rid of me again.

Once more, I felt his rebellious spirit trying to take back possession of his mind.

"There is no sense in fighting, Bradshaw!" I shouted at his reflection in the mirror. "When will you learn that you have nothing to say in this matter? Your body is mine! Your mind is mine! Such is your fate!"

Flashes of pain sparked behind my (his?) eyes as he tried to once more repossess his own body.

With an exasperated sigh, I searched through the bedroom dresser drawers, finding the hypodermic needle at my disposal. Mercilessly, I stabbed it into my well-toned upper arm, oblivious to the pain as the heroin shot into his bloodstream, forcing his brain to submit to the drug. And once more I was in control.

And a handsome devil I was indeed!

Sporting a blazer jacket, jeans and a pair of loafers, I looked fashionably casual. Veronica would not be able to resist me.

I smiled with anticipation.

* * *

The limousine driver seemed to think that I was quite mad to pay three hundred dollars just to go to the nearby restaurant named "Chili's." Once he received his payment, his attitude changed considerably and he wished me a pleasant day. 

As I wandered about the garish place with the "Tex Mex" atmosphere, I saw Veronica sitting at a booth, nervously twisting a curl of raven hair between her fingers, undoubtedly sipping at one of her blasted Diet Cokes.

Dear Lord above, how I had missed her!

Dressed in one of her skimpy little dresses, she was a vision of unparalleled beauty in purple. I longed to throw myself at her sandaled feet. That or tear off all of her clothes. And I could not stop drinking in the vision of her until I was intoxicated.

As she turned to face me, the expression on her face took me aback. Yes, she was beautiful yet her eyes were so miserably sad. Had she grieved so for me?

The thought was overwhelming.

"Mr. Bradshaw?" she asked nervously.

Remembering the role I had to play, I assumed the character, smiling with aplomb.

"Good Lord! The girl at Charlie's!" I announced with mock surprise.

Her ivory skin was suffused with the charming blush that I so adored.

"I had hoped that you would not remember that..."

"How could I ever forget such an exquisite moment?" I asked flirtatiously, pouring on the charm as much as I could as I kissed her delicate hand. Just the fleeting touch of her palm made me feel giddy. And I was pleased to see the sadness in her eyes brighten into passion. She clearly felt this connection between us which surpassed time and space.

So strong was our bond that for a moment, I was almost worried that she suspected my ruse. But of course, how could she possibly conceive of such a thing?

Soon, Veronica, soon...I promised.

She pulled away quickly, too quickly as if my touch had stung her.

"We should stick to the business at hand, Mr. Bradshaw."

Her voice was cold and brittle as she folded her arms across her chest.

Had my mottled face suddenly returned? Did my rotten flesh and soul somehow make itself known even under my disguise? I tried to swallow back the rejection and take it in stride.

After all, how could the young child possibly know my feelings? How could she possibly know how much I burned for her? To her, I was simply another stranger, not even her shadow of a ghost. Never had I excelled in the art of patience, but now I must endeavor to do so.

"Yes!" I responded, shrugging off the frustration with a cockiness that I did not feel. Rewarding her with a patented Bradshaw grin, I continued with my pitch for the plans for our novel. "I was quite moved by your story of Erik, my dear. Indeed, I was amazed. I should very much like to see it come to life on the stage. And I should like you to help me."

"Me?"

"Yes, we could write the piece together and split the profits. My other play has already been a success. We could perhaps run the new play on the side, as a repertory piece."

"Hmmm..." Veronica mused. "Well, it seems like a good idea..."

"Yes, and perhaps if it is a success, we could even turn it into a motion picture..."

"Do you really think anyone would be interested?" she asked doubtfully. "In seeing this on the screen?"

"I have no doubt of such," I rejoindered as I recalled the book titles that I had studied the day before. "Think of the current bestsellers. _The DaVinci Code_ was a study of the life of Jesus. _The Historian_ was an account of Tepes Dracula. Both of these stories were best selling novels which made high profits. Surely, there is a taste for the true story about Erik, the Phantom of the Opera."

"I think it's great that you like my work, Mr. Bradshaw," Veronica continued. "But..."

"Yes?"

"I'm really not that great a writer. This whole story I wrote, this book, was kind of a fluke."

"Nonsense!" I scoffed.'

"It was!" she insisted. "I don't know how to explain it to you, but...I'm really just an actress...not a screenwriter or a playwright"

Waving her off, I continued.

"Very well, if you are going to be coy, how would you like to play the lead in the play?"

"Christine?" she gasped, eyes wide with amazement.

"Of course, you'd be perfect for the role."

She looked at me in disbelief for a few moments.

"You'd let me play Christine in your play?"

"I offered, did I not?"

"But you don't even know if I can act!"

"I have an instinct about these things, my dear," I continued, on a role. "I know that you are talented and determined and smart. By the time our masterpiece is complete and filmend, all of the world shall recognize you as a brilliant actress. You could even be on that show, that... 'Dancing With the Stars' program..."

Veronica let out a loud girlish laugh.

"Yeah, right," she giggled. "I should have known you were full of it."

I did not know what that particular expression meant, so I ignored it.

"Please call me Tony."

"Tony," she said, nodding. The look in her eyes was so vibrant and alive I could have just eaten her up. I wanted to hold onto that life force forever. Again, she remembered herself and looked away.

"I still can't believe this is happening," she said. "This book just sort of grew out of..."

Her eyes darkened with memories.

"...Out of a sort of crazy...obsession...with the Phantom. Sometimes I think that I had just lost my mind for a short period of time. Like I was possessed or something...I don't know..."

For a second, her eyes welled up with tears. Oh, my heart! Quickly, she brushed the wetness from her cheeks before continuing.

"I don't think I have any more stories in me, Mr. Bradshaw. I seem to have lost my creative inspiration and I don't know if I will get it back. I would be happy to sell you the rights to the story to do with as you will. But I would just as soon not be involved with the project, either as a writer or an actress. I just...don't have it in me...not anymore..."

I felt an odd sensation in the back of Tony Bradshaw's eyes. Could I possibly be crying as well? The words of the young woman moved me. Did she really care about me so much? Had anyone ever cared about me so much? My emotion strengthened my resolve. I would do anything to make her happy. I would do anything to win her. I would move mountains.

"I feel all too keenly your sadness, my dear. I too have suffered tragedy in life, but sometimes we get second chances." Taking her hand, I looked deeply into her eyes, willing her to listen to me. "Let us that this second chance together, Veronica. Please...give it a chance..."

Her eyes flickered with uncertainty.

"You almost make me believe that we can really do this thing," she said, hope once more returning to her voice.

"I know that we can," I agreed, feeling the unfamiliarity of a smile reach my lips. But then a blinding pain slashed into my skull, causing me to feel dizzy and lose my vision.

"Mr. Bradshaw, are you OK?"

I felt my control waning and Bradshaw's mind slipping from my grasp.

And then...nothing...


	13. Living in Oblivion

Tony Bradshaw shook his head for a moment, not sure of where he was. All he could hear was some horrid country and western song playing in the background. All he could feel was an incessant throbbing in his skull like his brain was ripping apart. What in the hell was happening to him? Lately, he had suffered one blackout after the next, losing large chunks of his memory and suffering blinding migraines.

"Mr. Bradshaw?" a woman's voice asked. "Are you OK?"

With confusion, Tony looked up from the tiled table, peering at a pert brunette sitting across from him, holding a Diet Coke. The girl seemed attractive enough. Was she one of his fans? She seemed like the type. When the woman reached out to touch his arm, he backed away from her nervously. Who was this woman? What was going on?

"Perhaps we should discuss this at another time?" she continued uncertainly. "You seem kind of sick."

"What were we talking about?" he asked feebly, hoping for a clue to help him out.

"_Erik's Story_. Writing our play and making our masterpiece!"

The woman giggled a little as she continued, her eyes lighting up as she took a large hardback copy of a novel out and plopped it upon the table.

"Your enthusiasm is winning me over, Mr. Bradshaw. I have to admit that I am getting more and more into the idea of playing Christine. It would be quite a challenge, considering that I think the woman was a bit of a scaredy-cat fool, but my acting teacher always said not to make judgments about the character that you are playing..."

As the girl prattled on about whatever she had learned in Acting 101, Tony's mind wandered as he began to skim through the book she placed before him. _Erik's Story_ by Veronica Lindell. Oh, yes, he recalled the popularity of this book recently, but he had not read it. Particularly since the author had written a raunchy companion piece called _Bride of the Phantom._ The concept of turning the Phantom into an erotic character had disgusted Tony. Perhaps he had grown too close to his character over the last few years, but he considered that part of the character's appeal was his innocence and respect for Christine. If you made him lewd, he was just a dirty old ugly man. Returning his mind to the present, he still was befuddled with questions. What sort of promises had he made to this woman? Had he slept with her? Certainly, he would have remembered such a thing.

"...and I've always considered myself a bit of a modern type, but everyone tells me that with my complexion and hair, I would be quite well suited for Victorian roles..."

Tony could not take anymore.

"Look, perhaps we're jumping the gun a little bit..." he interrupted. "I mean, perhaps we should look a little more into the practicalities of the situation before we worry about casting. In fact, maybe we should put the project on hold..."

The woman looked confused.

"But this was all your idea! I thought it was settled..."

"Well," he stammered, grasping in the dark. "I mean, we would need financial backing and such. It's not so easy, you know, just to put on a play, even in regional theater and..."

"And I thought I was going to play Christine?"

"Well, maybe, although you don't seem the right type really for..."

"Oh, so I suppose I'm too fat or ugly for the part, is that what you're saying?" she yelled, standing up and nearly spilling her Coke on him in the process.

"No!" he protested, although he wasn't quite sure why. "Of course not. It's just that..."

"Oh, don't explain," she sneered. "It's quite obvious to me. You were all Mr. Sexy a few moments ago, trying to flirt with me, holding my hand and all that. I guess once you got a clue that I wasn't going to go to bed with you in the first five minutes of our meeting, you've decided to move on to more fertile pastures, so to speak. And then became insulting about it, to boot!"

"No, you've got me all wrong," he argued. "You don't understand at all!"

"Well, why are you acting so weird then?"

"I..." How on earth could he possibly explain?

"I may be just a girl fresh out of the college dormitories, Mr. Bradshaw, but I'm not an idiot! In fact, I'll bet you don't know the first thing about making a movie, do you?"

"Well, actually...I guess that I don't have that much..."

"No, I didn't think so," she interrupted, off on a tangent. "All of this big talk about masterpieces and screenplays! You're just an actor doing a one-man show in downtown Dallas. And you act like you can make me into some sort of big star! You'll say anything to get laid, won't you?."

She grabbed at the novel, whisking it from the table and nearly spilling ice on him in the process.

"This book means a lot to me, Mr. Bradshaw." Her eyes welled up with tears as she hugged it to her chest. "It is probably the most important thing I will ever do in my life. And if you think I am going to do business or sell the rights to an insufferable shallow pig like you, you are sadly mistaken!"

She turned on her heel and stormed out of the restaurant.

Tony felt sorry to see her go. But for the life of him, he had no idea what they had just been arguing about. Obviously, he had been coming on to her. Odd since blondes were usually more his type. But that was a fairly petty concern among all of the mysterious things that were happening to him.

It was the heroin. It had to be. He had always thought that the warning about narcotics was just so much political maneuvering, but he was finding out firsthand that the drug was causing his mind to rot. How else to explain all of his strange symptoms? Momentarily, he inspected his arm, taking off his blazer jacket as he did so. Just as he suspected, there were fresh track marks. One of them left a rather nasty looking bruise. It smarted so much that it must have been quite recent. That's it, he had to get himself to a rehabilitation clinic and get straightened out. This was just too scary.

As he glanced in the mirror, he saw that his hair was combed a bit differently. Was he even wearing a sort of hair gel? He reeked of cologne that he couldn't stand. And why was he dressed up so much anyway? It was like he was changing into an entirely different person! As if he were becoming schizophrenic or...

He shook his head, feeling very unnerved

Maybe I should have done a show about Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, he thought to himself as he stumbled out of the restaurant and began to walk the mile's distance back to his home.

* * *

When Tony finally made it home in the early evening, he felt even more disoriented. He couldn't even seem to remember when he had last been lucid before the incident at Chili's with the strange girl. Time seemed to lose its meaning all together. 

Nervously, he checked the date on his watch. It was a Monday evening when the theater was dark. Thank God because he was not up for a show tonight! Not right now.

As he wandered about the comfortable one-bedroom bachelor pad, he noticed that the place was in a bit of a disarray. Books had been pulled out of his bookshelf and lying on the floor, primarily books regarding screenwriting and movie production. There were pictures ripped out from magazines of "_Dancing With the Stars_" celebrities on the floor. He had never even seen one episode of that show! On his computer screen, there was a listing written down in Microsoft Word for HOYT LIMOUSINE. Why on earth would he want a limousine?

With confusion, he reached for the phone and called his agent.

"Rosenberg Agency," the gravely voice answered.

"Sid?" he asked, reaching desperately for any sane person who might be able to help him out. "It's Tony Bradshaw."

"Tony, baby, how's it goin'?" the older man laughed, probably reaching to take a cigar out of his mouth. "Got enough babes tryin' to rip your mask off these days? They just can't get enough of that Phantom stuff..."

"Yes, yes..." Tony answered anxiously. "Listen, have there been any complaints from the management?"

"Complaints? What do you mean?"

"I mean, about my performances...they're OK? They're regular and normal and...all that?"

"Sure. What's to complain about? The box office is doing better than ever. In fact, they think that your performances have become more lifelike than ever. You ARE the Phantom, Tony Bradshaw!"

Tony swallowed nervously with a strange sense of dread.

"Well, good. I'm glad that everything is still going well."

"Why wouldn't it? There's nowhere to go but up, know what I mean?"

"Right."

"You actors!" the agent sneered on the other end of the line. "Only two kinds of insecure actors: those who are workin' and those who ain't. Listen, I got another client on the other line..."

"Sure, talk to you later, Sid."

Tony hung up the phone, frustrated. There were no answers, just more and more questions.

Well, at least he had been well enough to do his show, he reasoned. Even if he couldn't remember doing the shows.

God, he couldn't take this headache any longer. It was driving him even crazier than he already was! Reaching desperately in his medicine cabinet for some Tylenol PM, he washed down two pills with some Gatorade before collapsing in bed. Jeez, even his bed reeked of cologne! The sheets were all in disarray as if whoever had slept in the bed violently turned and tossed all night. Not whoever, he reminded himself. He had slept in the bed, of course! Just because his memory was going did not mean that he should lose all reason.

As he turned on his side, he noticed a small picture on the side of the bed. It was the publicity photo of Veronica Lindell that had been used for the jacket of _Erik's Story_. He no longer tried to make sense of why it was there, knowing he would only get more frustrated by trying. She was a beautiful woman with her long radiant dark curls and intelligent lively eyes. In the picture, she was wearing a black slinky dress that seemed to show off her shapely shoulders and arms.

As he stared at the photo, he felt the muscles in his forehead relax a bit. Thank God the pills were working for the pain had been on the edge of unbearable! He should go to a doctor in the morning and get the name of a good clinic. Sid would be mad if he had to take a leave of absence from the play, but his health came first. Perhaps he just needed some rest, that was all. Just a little rest...

The vision of Veronica Lindell's face haunted his mind as he felt himself slip deeper and deeper into oblivion.

_YOU DAMNED FOOL!_

The violently angry voice shouted in his mind caused Tony to sit up sharply. Eyes wide and heart pounding, he fell into a cold sweat.

Nothing but silence.

It was a nightmare. That's all that voice was. A Tylenol PM-induced nightmare!

_By the time I'm done with you, you'll be praying for nightmares, you clod! YOU'VE RUINED EVERYTHING! _

"Who are you!" Tony demanded, glaring out into space, feeling like Joan of Arc talking to the voice in his head.

_You dare to demand explanations from me after ruining my plans! Oh, you shall pay and pay dearly for your insolence, you horrid wretch!_

Tony's muscles moved on their own volition as if his mind and body were disconnected somehow. Suddenly, he was hurled from the bed and against the hard plaster of the bedroom wall.

_Your mind and body are mine, Bradshaw! And you are not to interfere any longer unless you want to know pain beyond your wildest imagination!_

Repeatedly, Tony was slammed into the wall until he could stand no more.

When oblivion came, it was a sweet release.


	14. A Haunting Goodbye

_Veronica..._

The melodious voice called out to Veronica in the dark. Opening her eyes, she felt as if she were waking up from a fog.

"Erik?" she whispered pleadingly, hopefully.

When there was no answer at first, she again closed her eyes, tears streaming down her cheeks unchecked. His voice had just been a dream. One of so many recurring dreams. But dreaming would not bring him back. It seemed nothing ever would.

_Don't be sad for me, Veronica. Please..._

"Erik!" she called out, trying to keep her voice down as she sat up. "It is you! You've come back!"

_Yes._

For a moment, she was filled with intense joy. Until the tidal wave of anger hit...

"Where in the hell have you been?" she snapped out. "Possessing someone else?"

_In a manner of speaking, I suppose. Yes, yes, I would say that I have..._

"Was she pretty?" Veronica sniffed.

_Don't be absurd!_

"I'm so mad at you I shouldn't even be speaking to you," she scolded. "Get out of my head! Get out right now!"

_Not until we've had a little talk._

"I have nothing to say to you," she retorted, pulling the bedcovers up to her chin and closing her eyes.

_Well, I have quite a bit to say to you..._

"Mary had a little lamb, little lamb, little lamb..." Veronica sang out, keeping her fingers in her ears.

_WILL YOU LISTEN TO ME, YOU INSOLENT CHILD!_

Blinking fiercely, Veronica laid back submissively.

"As usual, you're going to be your bully self! Fine, what do you want from me now? Haven't you taken enough already?"

_Of all the ingratitude! I poured my soul out to you, gave you all of the ingredients of a fine novel...and all you can do is cast aspersions against me!_

"Oh, right! Whatever! Don't forget that you are the one that possessed me! HELLO!"

_Veronica...you know how I abhor your speech when you use slang._

"Too bad for you!"

With that, Veronica turned over on her side, even though she knew that she could not hide from him. She also knew that she was pouting like a bratty child, but she was simply too upset with her ghost to act rationally.

_Your attempts to ignore me are ridiculous, Veronica, and you know it. In any event, I have come here to instruct you that you should write and perform the play with Tony Bradshaw. I have spent a great deal of time and effort on this novel. I will not have it wasting away on your...what is it? Oh, yes, your hard drive!_

"OF ALL THE NERVE!"

_QUIET, YOU FOOL! Do you want your parents to hear you like this and have you committed to an insane asylum?_

Veronica settled down. Indeed, she knew that he had a point. That was why she was starting the wheels in motion to move out into her own place. She knew that her parents would not like her living on her own. Still, she had to have some privacy. After all, she was an artist and needed her solitude.

"Of all the nerve..." she repeated in a whisper this time. "You come back after being away for months and order me to work with that...that cretin!"

_You never seemed so disgusted by him before when you were drooling at his photograph on a daily basis!_

"Well, that's because he was..." She stopped herself before she said too much.

_He is not me, Veronica._

Damn, she had forgotten that he could practically read everything in her mind.

_He is a flesh and blood man, not a ghost._

"Regardless, I don't know why you want me to work with him," Veronica started. "Since you're so all-seeing and all-knowing, you must know how he was coming on to me. Holding my hand and flirting. Then when he didn't get what he wanted, he got all cold and hostile and weird. And you're telling me to work with a man like that! Why? So you can get your ghostly kicks watching me having to fight him off?"

_Don't be disgusting._

"Well, I don't get it."

_Bradshaw is a creative man with good prospects. I want to see something made out of my story. He is the man to do it. And I want you to work with him. Do not let all of our effort come to nothing._

Veronica was silent. Why was her ghost lover wanting her to be with another man? It made no sense.

_Isn't this your dream, Veronica? Don't you want to be a great actress? I am giving you this chance. Do not spurn my good intentions._

"You mean you had something to do with Bradshaw's offer?"

_Let's just say I persuaded him a bit._

"Oh."

_I would never do anything to hurt you or put you in danger, Veronica. Believe me, I will not allow him to harm you in any way._

Veronica sighed softly, calming down a bit. "Well, perhaps I could give him a call, apologize for being so rude...and it did seem like an exciting idea at first..."

_Do you promise to do it?_

Veronica hesitated for a moment.

"Yes, Erik, if my working with Tony Bradshaw means so much to you, I'll give it another shot."

_Now you are seeing reason._

"But you'll be with me, right? You'll help me do this?"

_No, Veronica. I can't._

"What do you mean?" she gasped.

_We cannot go on this way. Life is for the living, my dear._

"No...oh, no..." she protested.

_Veronica, you are a vital young woman. You should be with someone alive. A real man of flesh and blood._

"But I don't want anybody else!" she answered back. "Especially not Tony Bradshaw! Erik, please don't leave me again..."

_Regardless of who you are with, this is no life for you, consorting with a ghost. I have not only come to extract this promise from you but to say goodbye._

"Erik..." Veronica sobbed. "Please don't say that. Please...I need you..."

_What use do you have for me, Veronica? I have helped you all that I can in this state. To continue on like this will lead to nothing but frustration and dissatisfaction._

"That's not true, Erik!" Veronica cried out. "You make me happy. You make me believe in myself. These last few months, I've been so alone and miserable. Please don't do this..."

_This is for the best, Veronica. Trust me. You shall find happiness again. I know it._

"No. I will never love another man like I love you!" she insisted. "Never!"

There was nothing but silence. Now that the prospect of his leaving her forever seemed very real, she could not hold back her feelings any longer.

"There. I've said it," she confessed. "I love you, Erik. Maybe it is hopeless, but I love you.. And nothing will ever change that. And if somehow you could be here with me, no matter how horrible your face, I would continue to love you. You must believe me..."

Nothing.

"Erik? Erik?"

But there was no sound, nothing but the crickets chirping outside of her bedroom window.

Veronica had never felt so alone in her life.

* * *

Later the next morning, Veronica resolved herself to call Tony Bradshaw. 

She knew that she should break her promise to Erik. His betrayal nullified all trust. And yet...she felt like she should do this somehow...that was the only course her life could take. For better or worse, it was meant to be. This playwith Tony Bradshaw.

"Hello?"

The accented voice on the other line sounded vibrant and alive. She almost sighed with relief that she was talking a moral being who lived on the earth, an actor who had the same sort of dreams she did, someone normal...

"Mr. Bradshaw, this is Veronica Lindell."

"Oh, my, what an unexpected pleasure..." the husky voice purred. "I am so glad that you called."

For a moment, Veronica was unnerved. She could not tell if he was being sarcastic or not. He acted as if nothing had ever happened. And he was all nice sounding, the way he was before things went all wrong. Did she actually think he was normal a second ago?

"Really? I would think after the things I said to you the other day you would never want to speak to me again. I'm terribly sorry for being so rude. I don't know what got into me."

"Nonsense, dear child. I am the one to blame. You see, I occasionally fall victim to...episodes. I suffered the most horrible headache. It was absolutely debilitating. So much so that I suppose I lost track of the conversation a bit. But of course, I am completely devoted to seeing this project reach fruition. And of course, you are to play Christine in our project. Indeed, no one else will do."

"Really?"

"No one else at all..."


End file.
